One of the rules of thumb I have used is that if an "economist" does not place the managment of the "community," "niche," or even "commons" central to their ideas of an economic theory and fiscal policy, they are mostly likely "political" 'economists." This is under the pretense of economics appearing to be iconic natural "scientists," very much in the manner of 19th century physics but with the lifting of forms of theoretical modeling of physics and chemistry that are mistaken as evidence of the credibility of economics as a "social physics" to use Emile Durkheim's aspiration. Further back this takes us into a patch of the history of ideas when it was 'assumed' that doing science was an occupation of the rich and well born. Positing science essentially elevates a hand of of assumptions beyond examination. The ensuing "discourse" lacks an interest in reproducing a bit of the open inductive process by way of a discourse held in common. Are their principles and assumptions concerning the "commons" and the ongoing enclosures? Pop-economics often operates in a similar manner in that the merit of a policy or practice is validated largely upon various poorly defined values. Some times the effort involved can be huge. I set out to review a pop-level economics book once that after 50 pages of the author's text, I had 15 pages of commentary including the results of following references back to the source to see if the article, piece of legislation, and history match up with the conclusions drawn and 'facts' asserted. For the most part the problems and misappropriation of every thing handy and likely to be persuasive. The issue comes to be how to sort out the varieties of fraud, in particular when the evidence and substantives offered don't provide much actual validation based upon a scientific discourse based upon match up to details of adequacy, validity, applicability, and reliability. Faith based economics usually runs aground much like proprietary software that is large on the return on investment ratios and then light concern elsewhere. This is also where labor is considered to be simply a commodity and having no conception or concern that economies tend to be demand side driven, not by the supply side. Pay no attention to the suits behind the corporate curtain. Tadit Anderson On Fri, 16 Sep 2011 07:18:28 -0400, robert searle <[email protected]> wrote:
I do not know whether the following will be of use......personally, I do not have alot of respect for economists but unfortunately they still have great influence in society, politics, and banking http://ideas.repec.org/coupe.html http://www.superscholar.org/features/20-most-influential-living-economists/
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/BiosEcon.htm#top
RS.