
Games Economists Play - huihuiilly
https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-games-economists-play
======
foxhop
Economists know enough to form an argument for or against policy, and although
they have a prevailing myth of non-affiliation with political parties, often
bias thier research and advocacy, intentionally or not.

As a result they chum with people in power and help guide them using
statistics and forcasting.

The problem is, economists are not all-knowing oracles and they often get
things wrong or they advocate for a path which yields unintended consequences,
sometimes regressing our states and cultures in the wrong direction.

Thier influence lasts generations, and they often may slip out of any
accountability because they have no shame blaming their predicessors while
promising that thier new models and forecasts are more complete and should
still be listened to when making very political decisions on how to spend tax
money.

Whether intentional or not economists often ignore or dismiss side effects of
their actions. This means things like class struggles or the environment are
not part of the equation upfront and therefore either become neglected at best
or irriversibly changed for worse.

They focus solely on a few sources of capital instead.

As for myself, I now use the "8 forms of capital" described in the following
post as my lense when making decisions, monitary or otherwise:

[http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-
capital/](http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/)

~~~
devoply
Economics is about taking political arguments and assigning them to a clergy
so that the people can't touch them. Economists relegate politics of the
economy to a special class that is easy to control. They serve certain power
structures. They obfuscate this power backed decision making with math.

~~~
tomrod
Economist here!

I missed the vizier training classes though. That's unfortunate -- being able
to intentionally shape world events would really satisfy the ego. /s

Truth be told, there is a spectrum of political leanings among economists akin
to the spectrum of political leanings among developers. We're not a superclass
of reptilian ubermensch and uberfrauen able to worm our ways into the minds of
the powerful.

Possibly the main missing point is that the book appears to be uninformed that
there are many economic scholars researching inequality, race[1], feminism[2],
environmentalism[3], and other progressive areas[4].

Really, there is a broad set of things considered "economics" and I encourage
folks to check it out[5].

Remember that all models are wrong, but some are useful. The article's mention
of Oi's work highlights this, but the book's takeaway is weird. Rather than a
justifiable conclusion of "economists are learning the same as the rest of the
world how to manage their leaky abstractions" the book instead treats the
reader to FUD.

[1]
[http://www.columbia.edu/~bo2/bookflyer2015.pdf](http://www.columbia.edu/~bo2/bookflyer2015.pdf)

[2] [http://www.feministeconomics.org/](http://www.feministeconomics.org/)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_religion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_religion)

[5]
[https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php](https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php)

~~~
specialist
Contrarian is probably referring to the Rasputin like celebrity pundit
economists who are funded and promoted by undeclared vested interests. Like
the realtors backing Friedman (or was it Hayek?) and those Freakonomics guys.

I'm _TOTALLY FINE_ with lobbying, patronage, sponsorship, and bias. More than
fine. If its declared.

But even "serious economists" like you have to admit there's personalities
claiming expertise you know they lack. The whole Gell-Mann Amnesia thing.
Those times someone on TV spews some nonsense that makes you want to kick a
puppy in outrage.

~~~
tomrod
Agreed, idiot-punditry is alive and well in all areas of specialized domain
knowledge. Charlatans make me want to kick things in outrage as well.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
Much of this criticism seems to be "Economist says X causes Y in situation A,
assuming B. Politician uses that to force change in X. How dare the economist
ignore Z?!" Like the draft example. An economist estimated the effect on
labor, politicians use the finding to abolish the draft, then the economist
gets shit on for not considering the effect on civil-military relations.

It's much the same, but more obviously ridiculous if you rephrase it with a
physical scientist: Chemist estimates some pesticide is lingering in unsafe
levels on one particular kind of fruit in certain limited circumstances, then
politicians use the finding to enact a sweeping farming regulation, then the
chemist gets shit on for not considering the effect on the price of food.

As a data scientist, I find this happening to me sometimes. I tell a PM that
we can say X causes Y, but can't really say what the relationship between X
and Z is, and people get really frustrated by that. Then they really want an
estimate. If you tell them, "fine it's 3 +/\- 15" all they hear is "3" and now
it's your fault if they make decisions as if we knew for a fact that 3 is the
answer. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'm sorry that the scientific
method isn't an oracle, but that's life. We still have to make decisions.

~~~
bertil
Don’t say “3 +/\- 15”, say “between -12 and 18”. Avoid showing the number you
don’t want them to see.

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
I certainly agree with this and follow this, but even then I've found
communications downstream in the game of telephone using the midpoint of what
I tell them, dropping any mention of uncertainty. In fact, many times it's the
very first thing they do. :facepalm:

~~~
bertil
What I’ve found work quite well is to remove the mid-point entirely, event
graphically, represent the edges with more than three significant numbers
(which I’d happily argue against, except): it makes the mental math to find
the average harder, and less likely to happen. Finally, explain that out of 10
or 20 results, one has their actual impact outside of that zone. Show
simulation.

------
jesuslop
Thought i'd heard of von Neumann, Nash and game theoretic equilibria.

------
oeo82vc
When they passed the tax cuts, the opposition said it’ll increase inequality!
Companies will buyback stocks and stock pile money!

And they did.

When you can give government a cudgel to use on the people they will.

In that vein, Economics has been a cudgel. It has absolutely fuck all nothing
to do with physics and is often ex post facto. “This is how it was so it’s how
it must be.”

What a shock, since that’s essentially traditional values level emotional
thinking and oh right a lot of our economic policy has been formed by limbic
systems captures by childhoods of having “believe in bullshit forever” jammed
down their throats.

Neuroscience has revealed too much about the functional loops in our brain for
me to buy anything else. This was emotionally fueled justification to stick to
a social meme. Not useful science or social philosophy. More of the same
“justify in math, a language the masses cannot reason around well, the
structure of our inequality.”

Economists are yesterdays wise men and today more like the those who insisted
we’d be driving nuclear powered rocket cars: crackpots

~~~
QuesnayJr
Economists frequently get things wrong, because understanding the economy is
hard. Pro-tax-cut people said that the tax cuts would have a stimulative
effect (which both economists and the opposition were skeptical about). And
they did. US prime age employment is almost back to its pre-financial crisis
peak. Does that mean economists were wrong to reject trickle-down economics?

Economists will always be the people policy-makers turn to, because they are
the only people who actually try to understand the economy. Economists
sometimes try to advance an agenda (and the actual economist varies by
person), but the alternative is to turn to someone who _only_ has an agenda.

~~~
jayd16
The decrease in unemployment has gotten slower since the last huge tax cuts so
you can't even use it as an example of "maybe it worked, its hard to say".

~~~
QuesnayJr
Unemployment is 3.7%, which is pretty closest to the lowest ever observed
figures (other than during World War 2). How much faster can it drop?

~~~
jayd16
I don't mean to imply it's bad. But yes. How much lower could it go? What did
a trillion dollars do? Its not a great example of a large effect being
correlated to a policy change.

------
wilsonrocks
Freeciv, in my experience.

~~~
grenoire
Miniconomy is not bad at all either.

~~~
dash2
Lots of trading in Dwarf Fortress.

