– The New York Times Magazine has an interview with James K. Galbraith that makes for interesting reading for anyone suffering under the illusion that Economics is a science. This is no surprise to me – I’ve doubted its status as a science for years.
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The Populist
Do you find it odd that so few economists foresaw the current credit disaster? Some did. The person with the most serious claim for seeing it coming is Dean Baker, the Washington economist. I saw it coming in general terms.
But there are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis? Ten or 12 would be closer than two or three.
What does that say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science? It’s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.
You’re referring to the Washington-based conservative philosophy that rejects government regulation in favor of free-market worship? Reagan’s economists worshiped the market, but Bush didn’t worship the market. Bush simply turned over regulatory authority to his friends. It enabled all the shady operators and card sharks in the system to come to dominate how we finance.
More… ➡
– Hat Tip to the Resilience Science Blog
– This article is from the NY Times and they insist that folks have an ID and a PW in order to read their stuff. You can get these for free just by signing up. However, a friend of mine suggests the website bugmenot.com 
as an alternative to having to do these annoying sign ups. Check it out. Thx Bruce S. for the tip.
I’ve doubted [economic’s] status as a science for years.
A commenter on another blog yesterday said the same thing about nutrition science (an oxymoron) when comparing it to economics.
My thoughts on nutrition science always revolve around the idea that the diet we ate during most of the last several million years is the one we are ideally adapted to. These last 5,000 to 10,000 years are a mere blip against that wider background.
I just don’t understand why that idea should be so hard to get. It’s very much like in economics where most economists to this day don’t seem to get the idea that economic accountability is not complete until all the environmental costs are factored in.