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Economics as a propaganda device

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Economics as a propaganda device The most serious deficiency of implicit formal theories is that the verbal language disguises the abstractness of the theory … The consequence of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness is that the theory looks too convincing to its proponents​ … He becomes​ the prisoner of his own logical model and is rendered incapable​ of seeing reality from any other standpoint … The most widespread example is provided by the neoclassical economists, such as Frank​ Knight, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Simons, and their present-day followers. These people seemed to think they had penetrated to the very essence of rational human action, and that they knew whatever was​ knowable about it … In other words, they believed that their abstract

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Economics as a propaganda device

Economics as a propaganda deviceThe most serious deficiency of implicit formal theories is that the verbal language disguises the abstractness of the theory … The consequence of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness is that the theory looks too convincing to its proponents​ … He becomes​ the prisoner of his own logical model and is rendered incapable​ of seeing reality from any other standpoint …

The most widespread example is provided by the neoclassical economists, such as Frank​ Knight, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Simons, and their present-day followers. These people seemed to think they had penetrated to the very essence of rational human action, and that they knew whatever was​ knowable about it … In other words, they believed that their abstract postulates​ were concrete​ descriptions of empirical reality … The followers of these economists, the Buchanans and McCord​ Wrights … are using their implicit​ formal theory as a propaganda device to support the present capitalist social order.

Lars Pålsson Syll
Professor at Malmö University. Primary research interest - the philosophy, history and methodology of economics.

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