Crime Against Humanity: Pensée Unique in Economics, 6

Pensée Unique in Economics is actually an adjective, a surname, a statement of fact; at the civil registry, it is ‘neoclassical economics’. Furthermore, Werner informs us about its other labels being ‘neoclassical doctrine’, ‘neoliberalism’, ‘market fundamentalism’, ‘market extremism’, or even ‘religion’.

Back to his workshop manual, I can’t obviously quote it here in full; what I can do is discuss some main elements and refer you to it for a precious and thorough discussion.

Proceeding logically through the jumble under the bonnet, the first issue is the neoclassical approach to it, and Werner tells us how here we have the unique phenomenon of the only school of thought in economics rejecting the inductive approach to favour the deductive one. Wires, hoses, belts, spark plugs, … inductivism and deductivism? Werner tells us that…
“the neoclassical school of thought is based on the deductive approach. This methodology argues that knowledge is brought about by starting with axioms that are not derived from empirical evidence, to which theoretical assumptions are added (again not empirically backed), and on the basis of which tools of logic (mathematics) are utilized to prove theoretical results.
There is an alternative approach. This approach examines reality, identifies important facts and patterns, and then attempts to explain them, using logic, in the form of theories. These theories are then tested and modified as needed, in order to be most consistent with the facts of reality. This methodology is called inductivism. All the natural sciences and most scientific disciplines use this approach. Inductivism is not only dominant in science, it also describes how we learned as infants about this world. When we touched the hot stove in the kitchen and burnt our fingers we learned inductively that doing so again would also hurt again. Inductivism is not only scientific, it is also common sense. This is why before the arrival of neoclassical economics the majority of economists quite naturally followed the inductive approach.”