Again Learning From Reading Unlearning Econ

    I always love his posts because he's a very helpful voice in these econ debates as he is trained in the mainstream Neoclassical ideas. I certainly see some value in many of the heterodox ideas out there but I do also think that there is much to be gained by reading those like UL-or for that matter Paul Krugman-who criticize the mainstream paradigm while coming for that paradigm oneself.

   Yes, Krugman remains within the paradigm-he seems to have found the outermost point you can set up shop within the paradigm where you can critiize it the most and yet still remain a member in good standing. Yet, while one may critiize him for never making the jump, there is also probably a unique kind of value in having that kind of 'critiicism form within' being such a vocal part of the debate.

   A vexing point about Neoclassicim is its resilience. In an earlier post we considered the resilience of Neoliberalism but clearly NC is in some ways the most resilient of them all. 

    As Yanis Varoufakis noted, it is strange how remarkably resilient the neoclassical framework is in the presence of many coherent alternatives and a large number of empirical/logical problems. However, I actually think this is quite normal in science – after all, it is done by humans, not robots. Hopefully things will change eventually and economics will become more comprehensive/pluralistic, as I call for in the article.

It’s good to sum up my overall position, but I think I’ll probably lean more (though not entirely) towards positive approaches from now on, some of which I mention in the article. Though I strongly disagree with Jonathan Catalan that heterodox economists are “more often wrong than right”, I agree with his sentiment that it’s probably better to “sell [one's] ideas” that to endlessly repeat oneself about methodology and so forth. So maybe expect a shift from general criticisms of economics to more positive and targeted approaches!

    http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/on-pieria-whats-wrong-with-economics/

     See also: 

     http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/the-ideology-of-doing-business/

     Yes, UL vows to do have more of a 'positive approach' from now on. I tend to think that both a positive and negative approach have their part to play but I do think that in trying to master as immense and difficult a subject as economics that a positive approach defintely has a place-there is a tendency among some to be so reflexively negative that it all gets a little flat-and we don't seem to be learning anything. 

    As my piece on the sragne resliience to get through the 2008 crisis unscathed showed, it's not suprising that many ideas have a lot more resileince than being able to simply overthrow them by falsifying them in one emprical example. 

   http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/08/never-let-serious-crisis-go-to-waste.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29

   If there is an irony it's that the continued strength of NC is due to something that this school with its love of rational agents would never dream of discussing-social psychology and our ability to rationazlie cognitive dissonance. It's less Rational Man than Rationalizing Man.