Which school of economic thought do you prefer?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm not an economist, so I don't know. I'm aware of the political/policy differences between advocates of the Chicago and Keynesian schools (and think these are important, in historical terms, in their own right) but I don't know how they differ at actually looking at the workings of the economy; something that is, presumably, their main function as academics. I know very little about the way the Austrian school has looked at such things, and don't want to know more; I have no particular interest in seeing how sociopaths and their fanboys view the world. Marxism can mean any one of thousands of different approaches to almost anything and I don't know a thing about any specific Marxist approaches to economics as a distinctive subject. In any event, I'm not sure if you could honestly call such a thing Marxist given the massive importance of unity to Marxism. Marxist-influenced maybe (but how unusual is that in academia? All competent historians, sociologists and human geographers are Marxist-influenced, whether they want to admit it or not).

Ramble, ramble. It's late and none of this makes sense. Like life? No.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Human behavior is usually used in a generic sense; like 'human nature' and so on. As something that is typical and applicable to all of us at least in theory, rather than 'behavior that some humans do'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Human behavior is usually used in a generic sense; like 'human nature' and so on. As something that is typical and applicable to all of us at least in theory, rather than 'behavior that some humans do'.

Where did you take such "usual" usage from? Would you mind a citation? It surely isn't a common usage among economists: such study wouldn't be of interest to almost any of them.

I take it from the fact that I've never really seen it used in a different way before; and because that is what I take that term to mean when I see it used. The behavior of humans at an extreme basic level (the level at which we are all 'the same' rather than at the social) in other words. As it happens, I also think that it is a completely useless term as you can't separate humans from the societies in which they live in.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I presume that he means in the sense that you can look at collective behavior, social behavior, whatever you want to call it; the actions of a large group of people. Which is perfectly legitimate, though the dangers of determinism and essentialisation are always something to be wary of.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Key to understanding opebo is that his favourite Orwell work is Down and Out in Paris and London. End of discussion.