HORIZONTE - Expertengespräche des Stifterverbandes:
Interview mit Robert Johnson, Direktor des Institute for New Economic Thinking, New York.
Robert Johnson sagt:
"I think the economics profession was making tremendous money in consulting for the financial sector. Many of the theories were not investigational illumination how financial markets worked. They were portraits painted like a marketing document. They did a great disservice to mankind and we're cleaning up after that right now."
"When the people become anxious they want the expert to tell them what's going to happen. And they feel good when their anxiety is relieved because they think they understand the future. But if the expert instead of telling the truth is telling snake oil, a false story, when that is unmasked the expert becomes the scapegoat."
"Economists are very much accused of "only seeing the economy through the eyes of the model" as opposed to seeing the economy and building a model as a map of what reality is. Formalism is very different to science."
"At the core economics is about politics and about power. And the question for the economists is: Whose power are you going to serve as an expert? Are you going to serve the public good of society or are you going to serve private consulting pay trends?"
"There are several modifications to economics teaching that need to take place. The first is rather than teaching introductory economics as an indoctrination in method they should teach it as a course in the philosophy of science where the subject is economics and its assumptions and the trade-offs and the flaws as well as the strings are explored sceptically on behalf of the student."
Interview: Timur Diehn