Saturday 22 December 2007

Boettke asks a good question.

Peter Boettke at The Austrian Economists blog asks "Do People Say Silly Things About Monetarism, New Institutionalism, and Public Choice as well?" The reason he asks this is,
... because it seems to me that people feel very free to say things about Austrian economics that they would never say about other schools of thought. And, I cannot really understand why.
My answer would yes. Economics seems to be a subject about which people say silly things no matter what school of thought they claim to be a member of. Economists tend to know well only the areas in which they work and thus can say stupid things when they go outside their areas. This is just a result of us taking advantage of the division of labour, we know a lot about a little. While non-economists tend to know very little about a lot and thus just don't know (or don't care) that they are not making sense. Do you really think that Hillary Clinton believes the comments she made on trade in the recent interview with the FT? Or is she just vote chasing? Also, and I think this is a problem in particular for the Austrian school, some supporters of schools teat their beliefs more as a religion than a science.

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