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Tag Archives: economics
Management Science
Well, I promised myself I’d finish this before the sequel appeared in the shops, and the conclusion has been made, shall we say, somewhat easier by the fact that the burden of my conclusion – that there is something terribly, horribly wrong with the state of modern economics – has become somewhat of an open [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged Enlightenment, ethics, Jane Austen, management science, philosophy Leave a comment
Why I Read Blogs
Further to my previous post, here is a selection of Monday posts from my top five bloggers (this time in reverse alphabetical order).
The Dismal Science and its Discontents
I note that the Freakonomics folks are doubling down, giving Nathan Myhrvold (the controversial advocate of geo-engineering solutions to climate change that they leaned on too heavily in the final chapter of their book) a platform to defend his contributions and De Long lets Nicholas Weaver reply to the technical points of Myhrvold’s post. However, [...]
Posted in commentary Also tagged Chicago School, Enlightenment, Freakonomics, philosophy, science Leave a comment
Freakonomics and The Dismal Science
Cute-o-nomics
The maps of real knowledge, designed for real life, showed nothing except things which allegedly could be proved to exist. The first principle of the philosophical mapmakers seemed to be “If in doubt, leave it out,” or put it into a museum. It occurred to me, however, that the question of [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged altruism, E F Schumacher, egoism, ethics, Marilynne Robinson, philosophy, psychological egoism 2 Comments
Greed is Good
Following on my ethics of finance theme, the Goldman Sachs profits and the Lloyds bid to get out of the UK toxic asset insurance scheme there has been much discussion of just what is going on.
This side of the pond first. In response to the Lloyds move, Simon Jenkins wrote a blistering piece in the [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged banking, Darwinism, ethics, financial crisis, greed, Marilynne Robinson, selfishness Leave a comment
Meditation: Robinson on Civilization (iii)
This is the final post in an experimental series in which I present successive paragraphs of an extract from Marilynne Robinson’s introduction to her Death of Adam essays. Here I make up the extract with the third and final paragraph, with the whole extract presented.
Posted in classics Also tagged atheism, civilisation, Darwinism, ethics, evolution, Marilynne Robinson, modernity, neo-Darwinism, philosophy, secularism Leave a comment
Meditation: Marilynne Robinson on Civilization (ii)
Following on from yesterday’s post, the first in an experimental series in which I present successive paragraphs of an extract from Marilynne Robinson’s introduction to her Death of Adam essays, here is the second paragraph. I am accumulating the three paragraph extract so today’s post starts with paragraph I posted yesterday.
Posted in classics Also tagged atheism, civilisation, Darwinism, ethics, evolution, Marilynne Robinson, modernity, neo-Darwinism, philosophy, secularism Leave a comment
Meditation: Marilynne Robinson on Civilization (i)
I have been rereading some of Marilynne Robinson’s essays from The Death of Adam. It is difficult to do justice to them and I won’t try, but I would like to quote three paragraphs from her introduction. Knowing how I read on line, I am going to do this over three days. Her prose [...]
Posted in classics Also tagged atheism, civilisation, Darwinism, ethics, evolution, Marilynne Robinson, modernity, neo-Darwinism, philosophy, secularism Leave a comment
Reductionism in Economics
Having collected some of the thinking in the economic civil-war debates in my last post I would like to now throw out a few general observations.
John Quiggin in a recent post at Crooked Timber notes some of the causes of the schism, he thinks partly due to the recent increase in polarization in the political [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged Chicago School, controversy, ethics, irrationalism, reductionism, systems theory Leave a comment
Economics Roundup
Krugman on Skidelsky
Krugman has a review of Keynes: The Return of the Master (h/t Krugman). Krugman continues to bait the fresh water economists but provides a neat summary of the Chicago school’s essential innovation, or, depending upon your perspective, regression to neo-classical economics.
In addition Krugman looks at the evolution of the master’s thought between 1936 [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged Chicago School, conflict, controversy, irrationalism, Keynes, neo-Hooverite, Paul Krugman, Real Business Cycle Leave a comment
Bankers, Economists, All, Repent
Archbishop Rowan Williams’ recent call on Newsnight for bankers and economists to repent has provoked a bit of debate in the UK, while across the pond Paul Krugman’s earlier call in the NYT Magazine for fresh water economists to repent has provoked a sharp response from its targets (h/t John Quiggin, who has a nice [...]
Posted in topical Also tagged Christianity, ethics, financial crash, Great Recession, humility, Paul Krugman, philosophy, religion, Rowan Williams Leave a comment
The Age of Cynicism