A Quote by Kenneth E. Boulding
There is no such thing as economics, only social science applied to economic problems.
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I have been gradually coming under the conviction, disturbing for a professional theorist, that there is no such thing as economics - there is only social science applied to economic problems.
Social economic problems do not exist everywhere that an economic event plays a role as cause or effect - since problems arise only where the significance of those factors is problematical and can be precisely determined only through the application of methods of social-economics.
People want to think of economics as a natural science, like physics, with the comforting reliability of simple-to-understand theories like F=MA. Unfortunately, it isn't. Economics is a social science, and the so-called theories are really social and moral constructs.
Mathematical economics is old enough to be respectable, but not all economists respect it. It has powerful supporters and impressive testimonials, yet many capable economists deny that mathematics, except as a shorthand or expository device, can be applied to economic reasoning. There have even been rumors that mathematics is used in economics (and in other social sciences) either for the deliberate purpose of mystification or to confer dignity upon common places as French was once used in diplomatic communications.
It is time to create new social science departments that reflect the breadth and complexity of the problems we face as well as the novelty of 21st-century science. These would include departments of biosocial science, network science, neuroeconomics, behavioral genetics and computational social science.
Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine, as a social science, as the science of human beings, has the obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution: the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution. The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and social problems fall to a large extent within their jurisdiction.
There is no such thing as applied science, only the application of pure science.
The hardest problems of pure and applied science can only be solved by the open collaboration of the world-wide scientific community.
Today if you look at most economic textbooks, economics is not defined by subject matter. It's presented as a science of social choice that applies not only to material goods - not only to flat-screen televisions - but to every decision we make, whether it's to get married, or to stay married, whether to have children and how to educate those children, or how to look after our health.
Game theory is a branch of, originally, applied mathematics, used mostly in economics and political science, a little bit in biology, that gives us a mathematical taxonomy of social life, and it predicts what people are likely to do and believe others will do in cases where everyone's actions affect everyone else.
All of the problems we're facing with debt are manmade problems. We created them. It's called fantasy economics. Fantasy economics only works in a fantasy world. It doesn't work in reality.
Economics seeks to be a science. Science is supposed to be objective and it is difficult to be scientific when the subject matter, the participant in the economic process, lacks objectivity.
The aims of pure basic science, unlike those of applied science, are neither fast-flowing nor pragmatic. The quick harvest of applied science is the useable process, the medicine, the machine. The shy fruit of pure science is understanding.
Critics of 'economic sciences' sometimes refer to the development of a 'pseudoscience' of economics, arguing that it uses the trappings of science, like dense mathematics, but only for show.
This example illustrates the differences in the effects which may be produced by research in pure or applied science. A research on the lines of applied science would doubtless have led to improvement and development of the older methods - the research in pure science has given us an entirely new and much more powerful method. In fact, research in applied science leads to reforms, research in pure science leads to revolutions, and revolutions, whether political or industrial, are exceedingly profitable things if you are on the winning side.
Economics is a social science, not a physical science.
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