From: GERALD LEVY (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Sat May 17 2008 - 03:10:53 EDT
> I agree to some extent with this. However, for the prediction of short-term trends, a lot of theory is often unnecessary - just a careful study of > empirical trends is often sufficient. But Keynesian theorists failed spectacularly even in forecasting shortterm trends. Hi Jurriaan: Who - if anyone - has a better record? Journalists, business economists, and economists employed by states and unions (whatever their theoretical perspective) have a record, I think, which is even worse (due in part, to an inherent bias). Marxian economists don't have a stellar record on this either. > . In my experience, Marxists often assumed that Marx's economic theory has a direct and immediate empirical relevance, when it only > described the essence of phenomena, and this results in confusing short-term and long-term tendencies. Right. There's often a fallacy that is applied to the examination of concrete questions - that the answers to those questions can be deduced directly from abstract theory. In a way, that's an example of the fallacy of division. In solidarity, Jerry _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat May 31 2008 - 00:00:04 EDT