Flutterby™! : Angus Deaton Rethinking Economics 2024-03-25 23:54:01.913936+01

Angus Deaton Rethinking Economics

2024-03-25 23:54:01.913936+01 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

If you've been reading Flutterby for 26 years now, you've seen my personal evolution from big-O Objectivist big-L Libertarian, to ~~raving left wing statist kook~~ pragmatist. It's happened a bit at a time, first was realizing that Rand's essay on patents and creating artificial scarcity laid bare that most Libertarians are Monarchists who aren't smart enough to realize it (I think something made horribly clear in the past several years). Somewhere in there was reading A Farewell To Alms and realizing the ways in which the conclusion of that book was flawed.

Anyway, a few years ago I ran across Donald MacKenzie's observation that the study of economics is an engine, not a camera (I haven't yet read his book), and that shattered a few more neurons loose, and last night I started reading Kate Raworth's Donut Economics, and it's good to see that a lot of younger economists are questioning the institution.

So, yeah, unsurprising that Nobel laureate economist Angus Deaton savages his own profession as clueless and unethical.

International Monetary Fund : Angus Deaton : Rethinking Economics

#Comment Re: Angus Deaton Rethinking Economics made: 2024-03-26 01:07:58.814166+01 by: spc476

I'd be wary of the "pragmatist" label---Kissenger was a pragmatist (realpolitik) and look where it got us.

#Comment Re: Angus Deaton Rethinking Economics made: 2024-03-26 21:54:52.201243+01 by: Dan Lyke

Yeah, there's that challenge of what the metrics are for pragmatism... But, especially as I read through Henry George's philosophical justifications for the land value tax, I think it's also important to say "we're doing this because we desire this outcome" rather than "we're doing this because it's the one true way".