Re: What is economics? (repost)

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Article #1744

#1744

From: Karl Wee
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 23:05

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In article <C169H6.Mnv@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU> sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner) writes:
>
>If they can't understand human behavior, how could they possibly prescribe a 
>behavior system that would work?  

By doing it stepwise.  First, create some structure in one area so you can
understand things better in order to create more structure elsewhere, and so
on.  Prescriptions don't need complete understanding of human behavior.  For
example, we think that lying is bad and we should prescribe "no lying",
However, no study can ever traverse all possible chains of events to prove
that such a society is better than one that allows lying under some
definition of "good".  We prescribe it simply for the sake of structure so
we can build other things on the assumption that people basically tell teh
truth.

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!biosci!oracle!unrepliable!bounce
From: kwee@oracle.uucp (Karl Wee)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: What is economics? (repost)
Message-ID: <1993Jan24.230552.13382@oracle.us.oracle.com>
Date: 24 Jan 93 23:05:52 GMT
References: <1993Jan19.095018.16153@oracle.us.oracle.com> <C169H6.Mnv@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU>
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