Thursday, July 28, 2011

Economics

I can't resist this quote. Peter Berger says that Bernard Lewis wants to write an essay on economics, starting thusly:

"In the history of human thought science has often come out of superstition. Astronomy came out of astrology. Chemistry came out of alchemy. What will come out of economics?"

When you consider that Keynes is still taken seriously, you have to wonder if there ever will be a real science there. A graffiti on a warehouse in Madison claims that "Debt = Money." (All you need is the Philosopher's Stone.)

2 comments:

Russ Nelson said...

Sadly, this is true. Unfortunately, some of the things being proposed as successors to economics are as bad as Keynesianism. You *do* know that Keynes proposed to reinvent all of economics. The things he saw as problems he tried to address by throwing out the entire community with the bathwater. Austrian economics at least deals with capital and time; subjects of which Keynes seems to have been ignorant.

james said...

No, I didn't know that. But it doesn't surprise me.