What Does Neocalssical Economics Explain?

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 17 07:02:43 PST 2003



> Marxism explains lots of stuff. So does classical
> econ.

What _does_ NCE explain? Enlighten me. After some decades of study, I am not sure that it explains _anything._ I don't deny that the law of supply and demand is valid in a limityed sphere and that there are invisible hand effects, but these propositions were known to Smith and Ricardo, accepted by Marx, and shared by Hayek (who is NOT an NCE). Basically NCE dresses up some Smithian platitudes in math that is impressive if you have a social science background, but is not explanatory or informative, or even interesting from a mathematical perspective. It's a load of crap, not to put too fine a point on it.

Btw, I think Fitch was talking about historical materialism, not about Marxisn economics. That is. he aws saying that the you can understand 90% of what happens in the world (not just the economy) by looking to the class positions and interests of the actors. Unless you are Gary Becker, NCE has no such ambitions.

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