Skeptic Project

For the benefit of the Zeitard lurkers who seem curious about our economic views, I thought a thread where we declare them might be helpful.

I am a regular ole Keynesian.

What say you?

keynesian makes sense to me.

I actually follow the idea laid out by Karl Polanyi and, to a limited extent, Marcel Mauss. I disagree with the idea that economic activity is separable from social spheres and so to understand economics we should have a more anthropological understanding of economic systems.

"I disagree with the idea that economic activity is separable from social spheres and so to understand economics we should have a more anthropological understanding of economic systems."

Explain.

"I do subscribe to a handful of Milton Friedman"

woo-woo

@Matt

I disagree with the underlying principle in economics as an epistemologically separate field where we assume rational actors for our models. Economic study doesn't account for cultural values nor how social patterns and historical particularism interact with complex structures in our financial system. Consider that free-market capitalism doesnt exist because of all the contingencies that exist to block pure implementation. Now think about how much more stable and complete of a picture we would have if we stopped making some fundamentally flawed assumptions about human behavior and economic activity. For a more complete understanding, I really do suggest Polanyi's "The Great Transformation" which talks about how our contemporary view of economics emerged from this very division between the two spheres (or rather false division).

I think that as long as economics continues to take the trend of following decision making based on what we know about the world, things should be pretty fine.