From time to time you'll hear people say "I'm an X economist", where X might be labor, historical, Marxist, behavioral, Hayekian, Chicagoan, or Austrian. It is generally a mistake to say that. I don't mean that all schools of economics have produced equally valid results. I mean that the quality of economics is independent of the school that produced it.
There are no X economics. There are only good economics, and bad economics. Limiting yourself to only one school of economics is adopting an ideology. I have found much of value in Austrian economics, but I don't think of myself as an Austrian economist. I want to be open to useful economic results no matter the source. Perhaps someday a Marxist economist might produce something of value?
posted at: 08:00 | path: /economics | permanent link to this entry