> “It makes no sense! It’s like, they’re measuring how many commodities are bought and sold in a year, but the point isn’t the commodities, you know? It’s the hours of labor.”<p>This is a flawed, Marxist labor theory of value that can't explain why an artisanally-made handbag that takes 120 man-hours to produce still is valued less than a Coach/Prada/LV handbag that was machine-manufactured with no human labor. I really don't understand these people -- but then again, theory not matching up with reality has never been a problem for Marxism's adherents, has it?
Oh boy, people protesting a science.<p>I'm the first guy in line to cut into economics. To me it's just astrology for people who know calculus. Or, as one wag put it, How many economists does it take to reach a conclusion?<p>But having said that, the practitioners themselves are just as aware of the problems of the "science" as anybody else. I'm also not crazy about Jungian psychotherapy, but you don't see me protesting outside the psychiatrist conventions.<p>While I may disagree with methodology, and I may even argue politically about policy implications based on conclusions various sciences reach, I remain convinced by the Charity Principle that these folks are working in good faith. What I'm seeing here are people who don't want other people in positions of authority because they disagree with their conclusions. This looks uncomfortably like an ecclesiastical dispute.<p>So as bad as economics and economists look? These protesters look worse. Terrible thing.
Ignoring content and ideology. If mainstream economics is so demonstrably flawed, the best way to make the point is not to childishly disrupt conventions and speeches, nor to make personally-directed attacks at individuals. The best way to "protest" the flaws would be to consistently and professionally refute the flaws and falsehoods.<p>By making their vehicle a protest rather than a rigorous intellectual deconstruction, at best the message is that they can't come up with more than catchy slogans and loaded (unbacked) statements. I have not done significant research beyond the article linked, which includes no reference to supporting and more rigorous arguments produced by this group.<p>Factually, there is huge variation in the economics profession and the claim "Neoclassicism is essentially the standard for 95 percent of the graduate departments in the country." is simply not true. There are many academic foci in economics and a healthy dialogue among proponents of different viewpoints. There is also a vast network of blogs published by both academic economists and amateurs (connotation = non-professional, but well educated on the topic) treating the topic in a more casual tone.<p>Lastly, the representation of neoclassical economics presented is a straw man, and an uninspired one at that:<p>>the fantasy world of neoclassical economics — a faith-based religion of perfect markets, enlightened consumers and infinite growth that shapes the fates of billions.<p>This is the model (excepting infinite growth) typically taught in introductory economics courses of all types. It is not taught as an actual representation of the world (though even as simplified as the models in Intro Micro/Macro carry a great amount of explanatory value over a naive interpretation of matters economic), but as a framework within which the basic principles of economics can be taught. A rough equivalent would be protesting a physics conference because the solar system model of an atom is not representative of reality.
The problem with economics is that its trying to make sense of the single most dynamic, difficult problem ever contemplated. Its basically an attempt to model the entire world's behaviour.<p>There's 7 billion people in the world, we're all connected in various ways, and we all buy, sell, engage in work and other economic activities multiple times per day. Oh and nothings reproducible, so good luck trying to recreate experiments.<p>That's one huge model to attempt to simulate.<p>And if any programmer/engineer thinks they're smarter than the people currently working on these problems, I'm sure some hedge fund will pay you millions to 'solve' the problem of modeling economics.
If these people are concerned about "growth and limits to growth" then why are they heckling economists and not lobbying for putting birth control drugs in our water supply? Is an economist is really needed to tell anyone that growth is bad when it causes an overwhelmingly destructive externality? The thing is that people don't want to be convinced of the link between economic activity and climate change. And yes, perhaps the high priests of money are indeed the right group to give mainstream credence to the (economic) downside of climate change.