Tag Archives: theoclassical economists

Yes, Theoclassical “Economists [are] Basically Immoral”

By William K. Black

The failures of theoclassical economists and economics are total and myriad. Many of their theories are long-falsified dogmas. Their methodological preference is econometrics – which gives the worst possible results in bubbles and when accounting control fraud epidemics occur. Theoclassical policies are intensely criminogenic, anti-democratic, and grotesquely unfair. Their proudest creations – their risk and price models – proved to massively understate risk and overstate asset values. They betray the scientific method that they purport to exemplify because they are overwhelmingly mono-disciplinary, in thrall to their dogmas, driven by self-interest, incapable or unwilling to follow logical standards of internal consistency, and intellectually dishonest. They award Nobel Prizes to economists who fail what economists claim is the decisive test of truth and success – predictive ability. Theoclassical economists are infamous for their arrogance, praising their field as the only social science worthy of the term “science” and celebrating its “imperial” nature while ignoring work in other fields that has proven to have far superior predictive success. Theoclassical economists are infamous for their lack of altruism.

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Bank Failures are “Inconceivable” under the Latest Neoclassical Fantasy

By William K. Black
(Cross posted at Benzinga.com)

Only theoclassical economics constantly recycles variants of its worst ideas that have proven disastrous when they have influenced policy.  Other fields advance because they embrace the scientific method.  Theoclassical economists repeat their worst errors because they embrace anti-governmental dogmas that blind them to the inherent weaknesses of the corporate form and limited liability.  This represents a dramatic regression in understanding from over 200 years ago when classical scholars like Adam Smith were warning that corporations were inherently criminogenic and likely to produce what we now label “control frauds.”

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