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119 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 13 Nov \ parent \ on: Wanted: Critics of Austrian Economics econ
The criticism is fair. Some economists give too much credence to our models and our data. But I'd say that most mainstream economists would agree that we're not a hard science, and even our best models and best data analyses are suggestive at best. But they're still useful tools, and better to have them than to not have them. You just have to interpret them holistically along with other methods, which would include experience, intuition, and dialectic and historical reasoning.
You're touching on a big important difference between Austrians and the mainstream that is also a point of commonality.
Mainstream economists give the impression of extreme confidence in their tools, while Austrians are openly critical of those tools.
The truth, as you say, is that most economists are at least intellectually aware of the deficiencies in our tool kit.
I think this helps Austrians to not get seduced by the fancy methodologies, but it also makes it very difficult to communicate across the divide.
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