The social world differs from the physical world because it is man-made and hence almost infinitely malleable. So, unlike the natural sciences, economics advances scientifically not by replacing old models with better ones, but by expanding its library of models, with each shedding light on a different social contingency.
Pointer from Mark Thoma.
This is certainly closer to my position than the “I am a scientist and the other guy isn’t” rhetoric coming from other quarters.
Rodrik’s quote also underscores that while there are agendas in harder sciences and they are annoying and for the most part easily dismissed, they can be dangerous in social science. We need a kind of positive economics prime directive for academic social science and to start holding feet to fires.
Rodrik is half-Tolstoian — every economy is unhappy in its own way. Full stop.
From Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue:
“Wherein does Machiavelli differ from the Enlightenment tradition? Above all in his concept of Fortuna. Machiavelli certainly believed as passionately as any thinker of the Enlightenment that our investigations should issue in generalizations which may furnish maxims for enlightened practice. But he also believed that no matter how good a stock of generalizations one amassed and no matter how well one reformulated them, the factor of Fortuna was ineliminable from human life. Machiavelli also believed that we might be able to contrive a quantitative measure of Fortuna’s influence in human affairs; but this belief for the moment I shall set on one side. What I want to emphasize is Machiavelli’s belief that, given the best possible stock of generalizations, we may on the day be defeated by an unpredicted and unpredictable counter-example—and yet still see no way to improve our generalizations and still have no reason to abandon them or even reformulate them. We can by improvements in our knowledge limit the sovereignty of Fortuna, bitch-goddess of unpredictability; we cannot dethrone her.”
The tension that I see involved in your stance – which you describe as
“my position” being “closer to … the I am a scientist and the other guy isn’t” rhetoric coming from other quarters” –
is that it alienates you from a libertarian position.
And your are not delivered from the problem by arguing as you did some time ago (see fill context below):
“I limit the scope of “just-so stories” to macroeconomics. Microeconomics often generates predictions that are falsifiable.” This is not a good answer, for the question that reality poses is not whether microeconomics is right and powerful, the question is whether economics (particularly including macroeconomic choices that people are asking you about) is right and powerful.
For more see: http://redstateeclectic.typepad.com/redstate_commentary/2014/10/just-so-stories-in-economics-and-politics.html
The whole point of libertarian economists like von Mises and Hayek is that a certain type of economics, their economics, must be immune to economic agnosticism (being of a “just-so-story” status).
Austrian economics is a concious reaction to the claim of the German Historical School that there cannot be a valid general theory of economics.
If (libertarian) economics is up for debate so is the rest of the doctrine that aggressively denigrates politics and the state in favour of an “economistic” paradigm (of the overall social order).
An objective economic theory is the last refuge of the libertarian against the intrusion of the non-libertarian barbarians who dare to call into question the market paradigm by making it alterable and dissovlable depending on political preferences.
The libertarian distrusts politics and the political participation of the masses precisely because he feels: “I am a scientist and the other guy isn’t,” having access to ultimate economic knowledge. Compare Caplan’s “The Myth of the Rational Voter.”
So,
either you admit the political nature of economics and the need to deal with economic issues in the context of a pluralistic society (which dissolves ideological preferences by political compromise and change),
but then you must distance yourself from libertarian dogma, or
you maintain the dogma and have to uphold a non-agnostic position concerning economics.
That is the price of adhering to (or giving up) an economistic philosophy of the good society.
Pardon, the misquote. Please, refer to the short last paragraph in Arnold’s above post for the correct quote, which I am addressing in my comment.
Are you missing the distinction popularly referred to as science vs scientism?
My one quibble with the quote is in describing the social world as “infinitely malleable”. If you will excuse the inelegance of another adverb, the phrase should be *seemingly* infinitely malleable. How malleable in actuality do we take the social world to be? That it arose through a cascade of contingencies is clear enough, but past contingencies become present constraints. It is a recipe for tyranny to think otherwise, I think.
I find myself thinking the same thing as the comment just above mine- human nature isn’t all that malleable.
I forget where I read/heard it and if it is a popular quote but if I remember the context correctly a guy once said, and I paraphrase, “I was trying to decide between medicine and law and I chose law because I thought ‘anything made by man can’t be as complicated and bewildering as that made by god’ and boy was I wrong!”
Not a believer myself, but I would say God may play dices, but at least they are not loaded ones. Men at the other hand…
Rodrik demonstrates that one skill has been perfected by economists of all ideological stripes – that of circling the wagons.
That is one key feature of a “regressive research program.”
Oops, degenerative not regressive.
The question, becomes how and when do you abandon a research programme when you are only looking for your keys under the lamp light?
Sure, if contradictory evidence smacks you in the face. But what if research programmes are like competing alternatives and one isn’t being looked into.
I don’t find Rodrik persuasive, especially when he refers to free trade and free markets as “sacred cows”. Both have been under attack by the left (incoming economists of the left) for quite a while – how much more do we hear about “market failure” than “government failure”? I find the Borges’ story about the maps pretty lame – maps are very useful in helping me find locations, whether in a car or hiking in a state park, without being unwieldy. I wonder how many of the multiplicity of models are as useful.