----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Mohammed Gani writes: > If Anderson did show disrespect, it is for him to mend his ways and mind his > words. I will just look at a deeper issue. It has central pertinence to > the issue of institutions. I am not defending Anderson, but I must defend > economics from the agression natural science. My point was quite simple: People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. This would apply to individuals coming from the "hard" sciences who are always quick to point out that economics is not a science. I then gave some examples of where economics has, in my opinion, a scientific base and where the "hard" sciences put up short in this respect. Why this is controversial on a site dedicated to the history of economic thought is beyond me. > The classical paradigm in economics arose in a climate of opinion where > people had unquestioned faith in the notion of natural law. The terms > mechanism and equilibrium, for example, are borrowed from 'natural > science'. The trouble is that economics studies something that has no > nature, but has a character. It deals with events that have no cause, but > have reason. The market is not a mechanism, but an institution. There is no > equilibrium, but there is agreement. Put with the most shocking clarity I > can think of: natural science studies inanimate objects devoid of life, > volition, creativity or freedom. The market is both a mechanism and an institution. There is friction in the mechanism, but, in the most competitive situation, it is the best mechanism for allocating scarce resources efficiently. Chas Anderson ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]