[ExI] Bitcoin

[BillK]

On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Gordon  wrote:
> But it is a science. It's not just folklore, as some might have it. It is a
> branch of the social sciences.
>
> It is a dismal social science that I am, perhaps unfortunately, studied in.
> I spent my education and a significant of part of my career and much of my
> hobby time on this dismal science of economics.
>
>

Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?  :)

Some people disagree.
See:
 ECONNED: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and
Corrupted Capitalism
Yves Smith

<http://www.amazon.com/ECONned-Unenlightened-Undermined-Democracy-Capitalism/dp/0230620515>

Review, (one of many) here:
<http://www.feasta.org/2011/10/05/economics-is-not-a-social-science/>

Quote:
What is currently taught as economics cannot possibly be described
either as a science or even, for that matter, as a study of society. I
make that assertion because the track record of economists in
prediction is so poor that it is laughable for them to claim
scientific status. This failure of predictive power has been pointed
out over and again – particularly after the failure of the bulk of the
economics profession to predict the collapse of 2007/8.

Not only is economics as currently taught not a science, it isn’t
social either. For mainstream economists society is simply the
aggregation, the adding together, of millions of individual economic
actors and actions. All of these actors are assumed to be “rational” –
a word which economists also use in a way that reflects their own
prejudices – a purely calculating and narrowly self interested
mentality focused on short and long run material gratification, whose
relationship to other economic actors is intrinsically competitive.
Thus ‘rational economic man’ has no emotion, is part of no social
psychological processes involving mutual influence, common hopes,
beliefs and fears, no mutual support, no group or common class
interests. Instead ‘rational economic man’ is a calculating machine,
focused on maximising his satisfactions or “utility”.
------


Pretty biting criticisms, in my non-economist opinion.


BillK