>*Capital* is a very important work (to say the least),
>which describes the workings of the dominant system
>and presents an elegant theoretical model.
>
>Can we say that theories produced by Marx and others
>in the humanities or social sciences possess the same
>precision and predictive power as those employed by
>the physicists?
Grin. You kidding? Try being married and keeping to your original game plan and see what happens to the "precision and predictive power."
>Is there, in other words, an equivalent Manhattan
>Project-esque success (so to speak) demonstrating the
>usefulness of *soft* science theories?
>
>If the answer is no, this may be the difference
>Chomsky's talking about and the reason he uses, in the
>interview posted, *smart ideas* in place of *theory*.
Well put, the answer is no.
Human beings are not easily quantifiable units. May be not ever quantifiable units.
I forget who it was, Joanna or someone, who noted that people are the most complex "units" of all. "Workers" are not "workers" except in an isolated abstraction.
Ken.
-- I've gone to hundreds of [fortune-teller parlors] and have been told all kinds of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.
-- NYC detective