tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277215496195926573.post555192713743445881..comments2024-01-01T07:41:51.347-08:00Comments on RALPHONOMICS: Are academic economists a waste of space?Ralph Musgravehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09443857766263185665noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2277215496195926573.post-22537833490817190692013-08-21T08:55:12.195-07:002013-08-21T08:55:12.195-07:00Matias Vernengo's point is particularly apt as...Matias Vernengo's point is particularly apt as the top of the mainstream is akin to High Church circa 1517. Steve Keen is a bit of a Martin Lutheresque figure in this regard who provocatively rails against the orthodoxy; Debunking Economics is his “The Ninety-Five Theses”. We know that the Establishment view will not change. Fine and Milonakis (From Political Economy to Economics, p. 300) put it well: There are surely diminishing returns to debating both the nature of formalism within economics and what should be its more appropriate role. This is not least because mainstream economists themselves show little interest in (or self awareness of) the nature of their own methodology and its weaknesses, or even that their claimed parallel with the methods of the natural sciences has long been superseded in principle and, to a large extent, in practice.12 Thus, significantly, in his defence of orthodoxy, Dasgupta (2002, p. 57) opens by confessing that ‘Most economists … have little time for the philosophy of economics as an intellectual discipline. They have even less patience with economic methodology. They prefer instead to do economics … There is much to be said for this habit … I know of no contemporary practicing economist whose investigations have been aided by the writings of professional methodologists’.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07857616719536009725noreply@blogger.com