226 replies to this topic

[Gandalf]

Economics for Sixth Graders

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Someone named Lorie Tarshis went to Keynes’ classes, took notes, and made a book out of it. The name of the book was “Elements of Economics.” It was published in 1947. Back then, there were people who thought that communist spies were everywhere. Some of these people, including William F. Buckley, decided that Tarshis’ book was also part of a communist plot, and started saying so very loudly to as many people as they could find. Many colleges became afraid to use “Elements of Economics” as a textbook.

Meanwhile, Paul Samuelson was writing his dissertation, and he saw how angry the people had gotten with Tarshis. He decided to make it so his dissertation could not be attacked in the same way. So he did three things, writing very “carefully and lawyer like.” First, he changed Keynes’ ideas a little bit so that in Samuelson’s version of them, they said that corporations in the capitalist system would always give everybody a job as long as the government and labor unions didn’t bother the corporations. That made corporations happy with him, so that they didn’t think people should call him a communist.

Edited by Gandalf, 22 September 2011 - 17:36:42.

[Anduril]

Odlican text. Dobro ilustruje aroganciju danasnje mejnstrim ekonomske nauke - nesto sto su austrijanci govorili vec decenijama.

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1) Economists should be honest about when they don’t know what will happen in the future so that people don’t rely on them in ways that they shouldn’t.
(2) Economists should admit that in economies some people want some things to happen and other people want other things to happen. They should be honest about what kind of world they want to live in, and not pretend like they know how to find a world in which everybody will be overjoyed.
(3) Economists should work less at trying to find reasons not to listen to people, and try harder to learn about the economy, even from theories that they don’t like, methods like interviews that don’t involve numbers, and from the ideas of people who are not economists.