Economics as Fraud
Philosophy and Revolution
Truths about the Science of Society and Life.
How to get to a correct philosophical/economical/political ideology, explained.
- Physics, Chemistry and Biology are exact sciences.
Social Science, Economics(Macro), Political Science, Psychology, certain parts of genetics, Cosmology are not exact sciences. Here there is a lot of possibility of ruling class pseudoscience masquerading itself as some form of "science".
- Evolution/Newton's Laws of Motion are true, we can trust the scientists, they can provide very very strong reasons for their assumptions and theories. The same is not true for "Subjective theory of value"(a theory in modern economics), we can't trust economists on their assumptions.
- Inexact scientific investigation is often not "objective". It is based on a mountain of assumptions due to the fact that it is very very difficult to obtain the kind of scientific data required to prove any single assumption objectively. For eg., Macroeconomics and Psychology require analyzing tremendously large amount of variety of data, and is constantly new data is generated, which is unable to be mapped using the present level of technology. And the assumptions cannot be tested.
- Often these assumptions are made by personal experiences of the investigator(economist/political analyst). Personal experiences and point of views are heavily influenced by one's class position, caste position, gender, sexuality and so on. For eg., A white scientist is more likely to use genetics as a basis for racial differences; altho closer analysis by us always reveals severe lack of data to make any such conclusion.
- There cannot be a broader theory spanning from Exact Sciences to Inexact Sciences, as of now. For eg., Pareto principle(Pareto optimality) cannot be used to explain inequality of wealth or power in society.
- Does this mean we can never have a correct position? that everything is subjective? that truth is relative? No. not at all. there are techniques to navigate through the ocean of inexact sciences to land "near" a correct "position". I will elaborate on these techniques now :
- (I) Always believe Chomsky and Marx. They are always correct about everything.
- (II) Look at the proponent's social position i.e. class, caste, gender, etc... that will help you:
(1) have some insight about their motivation/agenda
(2) see if they are likely to make good/bad assumptions about their proposition. For eg., an upper caste person is very much likely to make bullshit assumptions about the lives of lower caste people, a male could do the same about the lives of women, an upper middle class intellectual is very likely to make bullshit assumptions about poverty, accumulation of wealth and so on.
- (III) Look at the proponent's eco-system(who they share and develop their ideas with). It will give you the pool of ideas that the proponent has been in contact with. For eg., a "left liberal intellectual' in a capitalist hegemonied country(USA, Europe) is likely to say that "Communism is Dictatorship/Fascism" or that "USA invades countries to liberate their people" because they are constantly bombarded with a singular kind of narrative from the corporate media and corporate propaganda in schools. They have never been in contact with Communists or Marxist philosophy or been at the receiving end of US Imperialism. Hence they consider this narrative "normal" and are very likely to make unsubstantiated assumptions about historic and economic data.
- (IV) See how the proponents ideas have been interpreted by people in the past. For eg., if a philosopher's ideas have been interpreted favorably by Fascists or evil people, it is very likely that these ideas are made on racist/evil assumptions. If a philosopher's ideas have been interpreted favorably by social reformers/good activists in the past, it is very likely that the assumptions they used have been correct about the ground reality. For eg., John Locke was a wealthy slave owner and his ideas were used in support of colonialist interests, so we can conclude that the popular interpretation of his theories would also be evil.
- (V) See the environment/material conditions in which the ideas have been formed. Are they formed at a time/place when conditions were very much different from the present? If yes, it is likely that the underlying assumptions might have stopped being valid at the present time/place. For eg., Marx's analysis about importance of class cannot be used directly on indian conditions naively. It is necessary to check the data which Marx looked at, to form his conclusions. This line of thinking will reveal that the data he looked at, were very eurocentric. but we now have access to non-eurocentric history.
- (VI) Look for opposing views and see what they have to say and do a similar (I) to (V) analysis on those ideas too. Comparison will give you the best view. For eg., To arrive at the validity and limitations of the labor theory of value, one must look at the history of other theories of value in economics; which will reveal that bourgeois theories are more severely limited than the labor theory and that their development is closely in line with bourgeoisie class interests and so on..
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https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1238/d0883f94ce657031340253d366fb4935bce9.pdf - The Death of Economics
"Increasingly, the subject[economics] is taught not as a way of learning to think about how the world might operate, but as a set of discovered truths as to how the world does operate. The content of degree courses is becoming increasingly standardised. Substantial and impressive textbooks exist, both in micro- and in macro-economics, consisting in the main of the mathematical technique of differential calculus applied to linear systems.
It cannot be stated too often that very little of the content of such textbooks is known to be true, in the sense that many of the statements in textbooks on, say, engineering, are known to be true: formulae for building bridges exist, and when these formulae are applied in practice, bridges in general remain upright. The same does not apply in economics and yet the confidence of the true believers in economics has grow’d and
grow’d like Topsy. As they themselves would doubtless prefer to say, to give the description an authentic mathematical air, it has grown exponentially."
Truths about the Science of Society and Life.
How to get to a correct philosophical/economical/political ideology, explained.
- Physics, Chemistry and Biology are exact sciences.
Social Science, Economics(Macro), Political Science, Psychology, certain parts of genetics, Cosmology are not exact sciences. Here there is a lot of possibility of ruling class pseudoscience masquerading itself as some form of "science".
- Evolution/Newton's Laws of Motion are true, we can trust the scientists, they can provide very very strong reasons for their assumptions and theories. The same is not true for "Subjective theory of value"(a theory in modern economics), we can't trust economists on their assumptions.
- Inexact scientific investigation is often not "objective". It is based on a mountain of assumptions due to the fact that it is very very difficult to obtain the kind of scientific data required to prove any single assumption objectively. For eg., Macroeconomics and Psychology require analyzing tremendously large amount of variety of data, and is constantly new data is generated, which is unable to be mapped using the present level of technology. And the assumptions cannot be tested.
- Often these assumptions are made by personal experiences of the investigator(economist/political analyst). Personal experiences and point of views are heavily influenced by one's class position, caste position, gender, sexuality and so on. For eg., A white scientist is more likely to use genetics as a basis for racial differences; altho closer analysis by us always reveals severe lack of data to make any such conclusion.
- There cannot be a broader theory spanning from Exact Sciences to Inexact Sciences, as of now. For eg., Pareto principle(Pareto optimality) cannot be used to explain inequality of wealth or power in society.
- Does this mean we can never have a correct position? that everything is subjective? that truth is relative? No. not at all. there are techniques to navigate through the ocean of inexact sciences to land "near" a correct "position". I will elaborate on these techniques now :
- (I) Always believe Chomsky and Marx. They are always correct about everything.
- (II) Look at the proponent's social position i.e. class, caste, gender, etc... that will help you:
(1) have some insight about their motivation/agenda
(2) see if they are likely to make good/bad assumptions about their proposition. For eg., an upper caste person is very much likely to make bullshit assumptions about the lives of lower caste people, a male could do the same about the lives of women, an upper middle class intellectual is very likely to make bullshit assumptions about poverty, accumulation of wealth and so on.
- (III) Look at the proponent's eco-system(who they share and develop their ideas with). It will give you the pool of ideas that the proponent has been in contact with. For eg., a "left liberal intellectual' in a capitalist hegemonied country(USA, Europe) is likely to say that "Communism is Dictatorship/Fascism" or that "USA invades countries to liberate their people" because they are constantly bombarded with a singular kind of narrative from the corporate media and corporate propaganda in schools. They have never been in contact with Communists or Marxist philosophy or been at the receiving end of US Imperialism. Hence they consider this narrative "normal" and are very likely to make unsubstantiated assumptions about historic and economic data.
- (IV) See how the proponents ideas have been interpreted by people in the past. For eg., if a philosopher's ideas have been interpreted favorably by Fascists or evil people, it is very likely that these ideas are made on racist/evil assumptions. If a philosopher's ideas have been interpreted favorably by social reformers/good activists in the past, it is very likely that the assumptions they used have been correct about the ground reality. For eg., John Locke was a wealthy slave owner and his ideas were used in support of colonialist interests, so we can conclude that the popular interpretation of his theories would also be evil.
- (V) See the environment/material conditions in which the ideas have been formed. Are they formed at a time/place when conditions were very much different from the present? If yes, it is likely that the underlying assumptions might have stopped being valid at the present time/place. For eg., Marx's analysis about importance of class cannot be used directly on indian conditions naively. It is necessary to check the data which Marx looked at, to form his conclusions. This line of thinking will reveal that the data he looked at, were very eurocentric. but we now have access to non-eurocentric history.
- (VI) Look for opposing views and see what they have to say and do a similar (I) to (V) analysis on those ideas too. Comparison will give you the best view. For eg., To arrive at the validity and limitations of the labor theory of value, one must look at the history of other theories of value in economics; which will reveal that bourgeois theories are more severely limited than the labor theory and that their development is closely in line with bourgeoisie class interests and so on..
---------------------------------------------USEFUL-RESOURCES--------------------------------------------
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1238/d0883f94ce657031340253d366fb4935bce9.pdf - The Death of Economics
"Increasingly, the subject[economics] is taught not as a way of learning to think about how the world might operate, but as a set of discovered truths as to how the world does operate. The content of degree courses is becoming increasingly standardised. Substantial and impressive textbooks exist, both in micro- and in macro-economics, consisting in the main of the mathematical technique of differential calculus applied to linear systems.
It cannot be stated too often that very little of the content of such textbooks is known to be true, in the sense that many of the statements in textbooks on, say, engineering, are known to be true: formulae for building bridges exist, and when these formulae are applied in practice, bridges in general remain upright. The same does not apply in economics and yet the confidence of the true believers in economics has grow’d and
grow’d like Topsy. As they themselves would doubtless prefer to say, to give the description an authentic mathematical air, it has grown exponentially."
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