Economists are well-known and oft-mocked for their inability to agree on almost any economic questions. Minimum wage? Inflation? Immigration? Taxes? Ask a few economists about any of these and you are guaranteed to get several convoluted yet inconclusive and always conflicting opinions. But how can a self-professed science come up with endless contradictions? Perhaps this happens because any economic reasoning is tinged by economic ideologies. When one economists exclaims that “Taxes are bad!” while yet another snaps back, “No, taxes are good!” neither is making a strict claim based on scientific facts, but rather are reflecting certain personal values and opinions.
Because everyday economics as practiced is embedded in society, economic analysis, which takes economics out of its embedded context, overlooks the opposition of ideologies that exist in society (liberal/conservative, individual/society, etc, etc), a holistic and “objective” economics is impossible. Economic exchanges don’t take place in a black hole, devoid of time and morals. Numerous influences color individual economic analysis leading to varied – and wholly individual – interpretations of (economic) reality. Every “view” of economics, whether it is neoclassical, Marxian, feminist, or radical, favors certain aspects of economic reality in favor of others.
What is the result? Muddled public-policy and frustratingly bad economics.
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