Re:David Graeber’s Possible Worlds
by dragonwriter on Friday November 12, 2021 @06:50AM
(#29198367)
> Economics as a profession is built upon a set of axioms or premises about human nature and society.
No, its not. Well, unless you mean the universal assumptions of empirical science, that the universe is deterministic and operates by consistent laws.
It's true that there are some concepts (like the rational actor concept) that are influential in framing economic models, but these are generally recognized as, at best, simplifications, and there are approaches within economics that have done away with any one of them, and even within those that haven't an important area of work for decades has been identifying and quantifying the areas where those common bases are materially wrong and the impacts of the deviations from them.
No, its not. Well, unless you mean the universal assumptions of empirical science, that the universe is deterministic and operates by consistent laws.
It's true that there are some concepts (like the rational actor concept) that are influential in framing economic models, but these are generally recognized as, at best, simplifications, and there are approaches within economics that have done away with any one of them, and even within those that haven't an important area of work for decades has been identifying and quantifying the areas where those common bases are materially wrong and the impacts of the deviations from them.