Austrian Economics

[ddmoit]

How is the Austrian school of economic thought different than mainstream economics? Here's one guy's take...

http://mises.org/story/3369

I am an experimental physicist by profession. If there is such a thing as empirical science at all, I believe that experimental physics fits the definition, so I have had some experience with it myself. Now I do not dispute that economics is a science. Austrian economists do not dispute that economics is a science; it is just that they understand it to be a logical science, the science of human action.

Austrian economists deny that economics is an empirical science, that is, one whose theories can only be known to be true by experimental verification. Economics is a science in the same sense that mathematics and logic are sciences. Its claims are based on logical deduction from indisputable axioms, and may be illustrated historically, but never verified or falsified experimentally.

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[ddmoit]

Pretending Austrians Don't Exist, Part 7,844....

http://blog.mises.org/archives/010743.asp

[sandbagger]

Dan - as an engineer I've had a teeny bit of training in math. That bit from the "physicist" is nonsense. Maybe that's why he's an "experimental" physicist. He certainly wouldn't qualify as a math teacher.

[cx]

C'mon, Art, I'd think even you would feel compelled to admit your side got it completely wrong on the recent economics crisis. Seems like that is the guy's point in the article. Didn't see where he was applying for a job teaching math at all.

And it's pretty silly to deny that there were a few people, perhaps from a single group. who got it mostly right. Lotta empirical background for that one, no?

When you see all these little clips of Peter Schiff, among others, from as early as 2005 telling you we're gonna have just what we've got, you'd wanna think someone in the former Administration would have known who he was and that he had demonstrated some grasp of these issues in the past and maybe brought him aboard to help some.

I would certainly not ask you to ascribe any clear thinking to the new head of the administration, but he got to hear all the various opinions before he was elected and still managed to pick the wrong team of "experts" for his financial advisers.

You can certainly continue to dismiss these guys because they're not of your Republican party, Art, but it seems counterproductive to dismiss them because they got it right when y'all got it completely wrong.

[sandbagger]

C'mon, Art, I'd think even you would feel compelled to admit your side got it completely wrong on the recent economics crisis.actually, cx, I don't. But that's a different discussion and has nothing to do with my response to Dan. :D Seems like that is the guy's point in the article.again, my response was not to the article in total but to the quote where he made some lame comparison of math to economics. The claim that math is simply "logical deduction from indisputable axioms" is oversimplifying to the point of being nonsensical. Having established his credibility thusly, I see no reason to waste my time reading another word from this so-called "experimental physicist." :suspect:

There is certainly math in economic theory, but economic theory is not mathematics. :shake: