“From the times of Galileo and Newton, physicists have learned not to confuse what is happening in the model with what instead is happening in reality. Physical models are compared with observations to prove if they are able to provide precise explanations … Can one argue that the use of mathematics in neoclassical economics serves similar purposes? … Gillies‘s conclusion is that, while in physics mathematics was used to obtain precise explanations and successful predictions, one cannot draw the same conclusion about the use of mathematics in neoclassical economics in the last half century. This analysis reinforces the conclusion about the pseudo-scientific nature of neoclassical economics … given the systematic failure of predictions of neoclassical economics.”
Francesco Sylos Labini is a researcher in physics. His book is to be highly recommended reading to anyone with an interest in understanding the pseudo-scientific character of modern mainstream economics. Turning economics into a ‘pseudo-natural-science’ is — as Keynes made very clear in a letter to Roy Harrod already back in 1938 — something that has to be firmly ‘repelled.’
francesco sylos labini 