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Originally Posted by JavaBlack
Agreed. The two points are not mutually exclusive.
The problem is that history can be viewed through many lenses and that all historical events occur in multivariable settings. Study of why things happen tends to be limited by forces like those described in chaos theory.
People who look too deeply at history as a predictor tend to make the mistakes of believing whatever worked was the only thing that would work or whatever failed would always fail.
On the other hand, historical data is necessary for any kind of scientific or semi-scientific analysis.
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Economics becomes a
very complex science when it attempts to account for all the variables, and it is impractical to try to set up an "economic experiment" as some hhttp://www.politicalforum.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=515977
Political Forum - Reply to Topicave called for in order to reduce the number of variables to one. However, those who support looking at history to determine future events do have the advantage. History continues, and the evidence in their favor will continue to pile up until anyone who argues that we are going into a new era of human existence will look like an idiot. Extending the deterministic chaos theory to economics is a bit of a stretch I think, because people's decisions will always be relatively constant. I'm not saying that there is something new out there that could possibly work better, but I do know that there is nothing people have yet proposed as an alternative to classical capitalism that I don't find repulsive.
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Right. And that explains why there are also strong disagreements within liberal and conservative camps...
I don't consider socialism so much an economic theory as most of its bases are in differing values rather than economic analysis... They'll admit to problems with the growth of economies under socialism but determine it worth it for social benefit... It's incompatible as they are arguing something else.
But you still have varying degrees of the neo-classical and neo-Keynesian outlooks (which are really part of the same overall philosophy), as well as the wacky far-right Austrian stuff.
For the most part everyone in the field, liberal or conservative, is part of "neo-classical fusion."
It doesn't seem to lead to an end to the arguments on policy.
And it still hasn't made things any more or less predictable.
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I don't think socialism is an economic theory either, it is more of an idealistic thing. Economics is more of a science (though not completely). I think that most people care more about their economic status than their social status, take the middle class culture in the developing China for example. They are still oppressed by the government, but they don't care so long as they have the good they want. Policy is motivated more by self-interest than principles, unfortunately.