Economics
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*[[Georgism]] - This particular belief has been demolished in the economics literature, yet mutated forms constantly arise in the era of the Internet. | *[[Georgism]] - This particular belief has been demolished in the economics literature, yet mutated forms constantly arise in the era of the Internet. | ||
| − | * | + | *Labor Theory of Value - Although the Labor theory of value is clearly in the dustbin of history, that doesn't stop some [[communist]] kooks from clinging to it, out of fear of being guilty of "[[false consciousness]]" (or, in a communist state, fear of being executed). |
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| + | *Centralized Planning - while central planning is an aspect of most economies to varying degrees, the idea of an entirely centralized economy where decisions regarding production and distribution of all goods and services within a country are determined by the state has been discredited. | ||
*[[Distributism]] - a failed attempt at forming a new economic ideology out of a 19th century Papal encyclical; comes out something similar to the more recent "back to the land" sentiments. | *[[Distributism]] - a failed attempt at forming a new economic ideology out of a 19th century Papal encyclical; comes out something similar to the more recent "back to the land" sentiments. | ||
Revision as of 08:34, 3 September 2011
| The dismal "science"
Economics |
| Key concepts |
|
$ Economics |
| More about economics |
| Notable economists |
“”Not a "gay science," I should say, like some we have heard of; no, a dreary, desolate and, indeed, quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, by way of eminence, the dismal science.
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| —Thomas Carlyle |
Economics is the social science that deals with the production and allocation of scarce[1] resources.
The three primary fields of study are microeconomics (the study of small things such as how firms and households operate), macroeconomics (which studies things such as inflation, monetary policy, and international trade), and econometrics (which studies how accurate estimates may be made when applying statistical methods to social data). Other fields of study include economic systems, such as the viability and desirability of socialism and capitalism. Never mention taxation and government intervention when there are several economists in the room, as it will likely set off an argument about the effects each has on markets, and which policies create healthy economies. People may die as a result.
Until the Marginal Revolution, classical economics was the dominant school of thought in academia. Adam Smith is largely regarded as the founder of economics as a science in its own right. The phrase "the invisible hand" was his, and he used it to show that markets, if left unhindered by any market-distorting entity, can allocate scarce resources efficiently through price mechanisms. The 20th century saw the rise of Keynesian, demand-based economics and supply-side economics in opposition to each other. Current debates often focus on methodology, as current methods may be slightly lacking.
There are several heterodox (non-mainstream) schools of thought in economics, ranging from the right-libertarian Austrian school to World Systems Analysis, which is heavily influenced by Marx's historical materialism.
The trouble with economics is that governments generally don't let economists go around poking the population, making it difficult to verify economic theories. However, it would be awfully difficult to run one of these without any idea of when to stop the magic money machine. Just ask this guy. Think of it as performing surgery with an ax instead of a scalpel.
Contents |
Fundamentals of economics
What represents a fundamental truth in economics can be difficult to determine, as many theories have proven difficult to test. However, there are some ideas accepted almost universally, except by economic cranks. Here are ten commonly accepted principles taken from the top-selling college economics textbook, Gregory Mankiw's Principles of Economics[2]
- People face trade-offs
- The cost of something is what you give up to get it
- Rational people think at the margin
- People respond to incentives
- Trade can make everyone better off
- Markets are usually a good way to organize economic activity
- Governments can sometimes improve market outcomes
- A country's standard of living depends on its ability to produce goods and services
- Prices rise when the government prints too much money
- Society faces a short-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment
These touch on most of the major concepts and problems addressed in economics - the scarcity of capital, resources, and labor, the concept of absolute and comparative advantage that leads to trade, the use of the market as the basis of exchange, the disparity between rich and poor nations, inflation, and government intervention.
False fundamentals of economics
Some assumptions made in specific areas of economics have come to be viewed as economic "fundamentals", mostly due to crankery and political hacks. Cranks make a big deal of these assumptions in order to create straw man arguments criticizing economists for making assumptions that any ordinary person knows is unrealistic. Often, the reality is that these issues have been the focus of much attention among economists, to the point where the finer details can be difficult to communicate. Other assertions come about as a way to defend certain political ideologies. A brief list of these false fundamentals include;
- Agents possess perfect information - A common assumption in the economic models presented to undergrads, but by no means accepted by economists as an accurate description of humanity. Introducing imperfect information often adds a level of strategic interaction to economic models, making them difficult to solve with elementary calculus. In reality, economic models routinely explore imperfect information, and its consequences are well documented.
- Agents are perfectly rational - An excellent example of the issues in using jargon. The definition of rational in economics, and in the rest of the world, are very different. Rationality in economics refers to the type of preferences a person exhibits, where as the common usage of rationality describes the level of clarity present in ones thought. Certain fields of economic study, such as behavioral economics, have spent significant amounts of time testing the boundaries of this assumption.
- Firms are perfectly competitive - Mostly a misconception by those that do not expand their economic education beyond econ 101. Perfect competition is an assumption that, like the assumption of perfect information, eliminates a level of strategic interaction between agents and firms. Economists rarely think of this as a good description of markets, so many modern economic models, such as the macroeconomic models utilized in New Keynesian economics, utilize some form of monopolistic competition.
- Government intervention is always bad (Or regulation/taxation always lowers welfare) - Many simplistic models of government taxation show that poorly executed taxes may lead to a dead weight loss for the economy. While this is often true for marginal taxes, any losses caused by levying the tax should be weighed against the social benefit they provide. In theory, Pigovian taxes, which are marginal taxes designed to offset the effect of negative externalities, can improve social welfare. Many other examples of welfare-improving government intervention exist.
Economics and Prediction
It is tempting to judge the quality of an economic theory based solely on an observed economic outcome, such as the current economic crisis. However, such comparisons are typically ill advised, as we often do not know what would occur if the state of economic theory was different. This phenomenon, known as the missing counter-factual, leads to a great deal of contention among proponents of different economic theories, as it means the quality of such theories may prove difficult to test. Never the less, economists have a wide variety of statistical tools to employ in order to test the quality of different economic models, most of which rely on existing economic data. These tools are far less precise than those used to test the theoretical models in fields like physics. Consequently, (good/non-crank) economic predictions tend to shy away from the precise, such as "we will have a 5% dip in unemployment next month", and towards the general, like "If we don't increase the social security retirement age today, we will have a serious problem with destitute elderly sometime in the future". The lack of black and white explanations can be frustrating to cranks of all sorts, who would like to take this as a sign that their particular pet discipline offers the best possible explanation for the world we see today. Unfortunately, these cranks are typically unwilling to do the hard statistical work needed to empirically validate their theories.
Pseudo-economics
A large and diverse body of crank economic ideas exists, ranging from people who still adhere to quaint and archaic theories of the past (see below) to those ideas which still enjoy widespread popularity today, such as name it and claim it (aka God will make you rich), pyramid schemes, and esoteric conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve. The Liberty Dollar is a cranky libertarian scheme to set up a competing private-minted currency.
Other notions such as the Laffer Curve are valid economic theories, based on a vague curve fitting exercise with a broken data set, but are misapplied by some who don't have a full understanding of these theories. Often solid economic thought is twisted to fit a political agenda; taxation and government intervention are two common targets.
Archaic ideas that still get brought up occasionally
- Laissez-faire — almost no economists will still hold to this, if only because of the understanding that the government needs to deal with externalities. Moreover, a free market depends on perfect information, and people is ignunt, as any person who walks around a given city for a few hours can discern. A subtype of this is the Austrian school, who do recognize that people have a bounded rationality; but their theories are highly impractical, if not downright pseudoscientific.
- Georgism - This particular belief has been demolished in the economics literature, yet mutated forms constantly arise in the era of the Internet.
- Labor Theory of Value - Although the Labor theory of value is clearly in the dustbin of history, that doesn't stop some communist kooks from clinging to it, out of fear of being guilty of "false consciousness" (or, in a communist state, fear of being executed).
- Centralized Planning - while central planning is an aspect of most economies to varying degrees, the idea of an entirely centralized economy where decisions regarding production and distribution of all goods and services within a country are determined by the state has been discredited.
- Distributism - a failed attempt at forming a new economic ideology out of a 19th century Papal encyclical; comes out something similar to the more recent "back to the land" sentiments.
- Supply side economics - not completely archaic in some very limited circumstances, but in any state that already has less than 70% top marginal tax rates, the proponents should be shown the door pretty quickly.
- Social Credit - C.H. Douglas unveils the mysteries of consumer power using complicated mathematical formulas, like consumers exercising their power at the marketplace will direct the behavior of producers. Ya think?
- Galambosianism - intellectual property rights taken to its absolutist, and absurd, conclusion.
- The Townsend Plan - nobody seriously advocates this today but it is occasionally mentioned as an example of the economic woo schemes that flourished during the Great Depression.
- Cyclical theory - trying to predict how the stock market will go in the future by the Kondratiev Wave or Elliott Wave.
- Lyndon LaRouche's set of ideas. They involve quite a lot of protectionism (i.e., 19th century economic thought)[3], and a harsh attack on globalism, the IMF, or anything else developed in your lifetime. He also has a rather hilarious hatred of both corporate interests and international institutions while supporting constant government intervention.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ Scarcity, in economics, just means you have to pay for it because there is not enough for everyone to have all they could possibly want for free.
- ↑ http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/10_Principles_of_Economics 10 Principles of Economics
- ↑ http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/site_packages/2002/july_lar_breakout/2927memo_to_dems.html