Excellent! Natalia
On 10/28/2010 11:13 AM, Mike Spencer wrote: > Harry wrote: > >> Ray, >> >> Perhaps you can explain to me why my "land theories" have little >> connection to reality. > As far as I can see, all economic theories have at best a tenuous > connection to reality. Some may be tautological, some share the > bizarre qualities of Ptolemaic epicycles, some have more exceptions > and patches than a creationism that tries to accomodate fossils, > speciation and the rest of scientific observables. But they all seem > to happily sacrifice connection to reality in the pursuit of > theoretical elegance. Economic theorists suffer from Physics Envy. > > Land? Everybody needs a place to stand. But we can (or could, when > Brunner's novel was written) all "stand on Zanzibar". For the > present, there's an insuperable requirement for soil to support basic > food requirements. But you're not thinking of elementary physics or > biological energy budgets. > > In general, any economic theory is about human behavior, collective > human behavior in particular. But Bernays notwithstanding, people act > individually. As soon as there is an approximately true > generalization about collective human behavior, there will be people > who try to profit from making themselves exceptions to the > generalization. The only way that such economic theories, including > "land theories", can be made true is through coercion or manipulation. > > > Of course, "all generalizations are false, including this one". Ho > hum. > > - Mike > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
