As one of my greatest mentors put it:
Where does the "extra"come from?

When you look at the meteoric growth in wealth that started with the American/Enlightenment revolution, what causes THAT extra?

That is the question (and answer) of Dale/DBKhalling's book.

That they can be approached scientifically, I agree. The problem is partially in the inherent complexity and sheer number of variables, but moreso in the fact that any time we are dealing with human behavior, we aren't dealing with fixed values for many of the variables!

Esceptico,

That is a great book, which gets longer in each addition!

In case you don't know, the author of this post is also the author of a breakthrough new book on economics called The Source Of Economic Growth. In TSEG, he offers a complementary and improved set of fundamental questions in economics. As a long time Sowellian, I found it insightful, compelling, and almost revolutionary.

As a thought, if property rights are the basis of capitalism and its exponential wealth growth, how does property around ideas/innovation drive that? This book answers that question a significant order of magnitude.

Make sure you purchase, read, and digest it. For someone who can rip off your last post, it will be 100x worth the cash/time/effort.

Uh, try telling that to Glaxo-Smith-Kline. If the biology of every person was the same, we wouldn't have all these drugs with potential side effects. We would have those which worked, and those which didn't. Can we know the basic science of biology? Certainly. But that breaks down when we try to apply it to an individual without in-depth knowledge of that individual because of the sheer complexity and interplay of variables involved. And biology is substantially less susceptible to human choice than economics.

Can we approach it scientifically? To a degree. But to argue that economics can ever be a purely scientific endeavor is to deny the uniqueness of human beings.

"What we need to live (there is no difference between living and thriving) is objective..."

From a purely physical aspect, I might agree. From a human aspect which includes desires, emotions, and intellectual needs, there is a huge difference from one person to the next. It is why some buy the red widget and some the blue. It is why some buy Saks Fifth Avenue and others Wal-Mart. It is why some are on this forum and others not.

Attempts to put everyone in the same box as far as needs and wants is the same tack taken by progressives and it is empirically false. Would you put yourself in the same box as the looter? I think not.

Like proper physics however, both will be based on a proper philosophy of science.

apt. +100

Excellent quote.

I disagree that there can be no natural laws in economics. For instance, in a technologically stagnant world (society) there will be no economic per capita growth. Usually this will result in the slow decay of economic growth.

Z is correct that economics is far from science - but I add- at the moment.

Science is an approach valid regardless of whether human players act logically (as judged by whom?)
Irrespective of whether humans are logical or otherwise in groups or as individuals, the study of human behavior lends itself to the scientific method, or at least if understanding is to be enhanced. Therefore dbh's approach is correct. Economics should make use of the usual science methods of postulation, data, evidence, analysis, interpretation, there is a good quote of Richard Feynman about this.

I agree (almost). Total capital, defined in economic or accounting terms, is not increased just by its use, that is a zero sum game. Eg the economic history of Soviet Russia which was good at harnessing capital.
There can be merit sometimes in re-distribution, from some to others. But to increase total capital requires technology (invention, productivity, innovation maybe).
Unfortunately, destroying capital is easy, it is a skill possessed by the political mind.

Science is the logical, systematic approach to a field of study. It's nature is determined by the subject matter, not arbitrary demands that it be like physics and not be about humans decreed to be not "concrete". Economics, psychology, ethics,
epistemology, and much more are or should be sciences.

And that includes especially the libertarians' favorite 'Austrian' economists.

"No, the 'Austrian approach' has not 'helped to mold' my philosophy. It is one of the many approaches to capitalism which I oppose, though I do agree with many of its purely economic ideas." -- In letter by Ayn Rand to economics professor W.H. Hutt, August 28, 1968, in Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 642.

db; As we've discussed before, Economics is one study that is as far from a science as one could arrive at, as is most Social Studies. Trying to reduce human interaction to a set of 'natural laws' like we find for the 'hard' sciences, ignores what defines a human in the first place.

You may be right, but the older I get the more "understanding" I become about the conclusions formed by people hundreds of years ago.

hear hear

I think there is more than enough to condemn him.

I was a student of Economics myself and have come to value Thomas Sowell for many reasons including economics.
I ended up using that knowledge on the "efficiency" side because I didn't want to work for governments, Insurance companies or investment companies.

I established "economies of movement" in areas not considered lines of assemblies.

True, but as I originally said, we can't judge the past with the standards of today. Smith did observe what makes things tick.

The reason economics has become known as the dismal science, embodying "tenets" bearing little reference to contextual reality, is because it attempts to study its "science" without a focus on people - how and why they economically behave as they do.

It produces tenets such as money without connection to value, consumption without acknowledging the precondition of production, and investment without regard to saving.

I think what is needed in order to clarify whatinell one is talking about would be to divide what is now referred to as economics into several categories distinct from one another. A name for when it is used as a tool, for example etc Perhaps that's one reason why economics is not taught in schools. No one understands what it is. But then, very few understand what freedom or truth is, which makes the study of economics downright impossible.

Yes in fact most reject the very basis of freedom - rational ethics, including natural rights. As a result, they do not use a proper definition of property rights and this includes most of the economists touted as "free market".

They have substituted a utilitarian definition of property rights

In my studies of the underlying philosophical principles of various schools of economics it was clear that most schools of economics and Adam Smith first rejected the philosophy of science. I believe this is why economics has made so little progress. It is also why they never ask the right questions that might lead to progress. IMHO most of economics has become an attempt to create a tool that would make traders (stock traders, commodity traders, real estate flippers, etc) rich or as a tool for politicians

Medicine is about people, and biology is about people and living things - both are objective.

Economics is about how we obtain the things we need to live. What we need to live (there is no difference between living and thriving) is objective. In fact that is what objectivist ethics is all about

Yes but he rejected reason, causation, science, Locke, and Natural Rights which is enough to condemn him, because that was all known while he was living.

In addition, this was his definition of economics

The philosopher Adam Smith (1776) defines the subject as "an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations," in particular as: a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator [with the twofold objective of providing] a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people ... [and] to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue for the publick services.

Notice that it is inherently collectivist in nature.

Read the article.

You cannot have capital before you invent, because without inventions you are by definition living in the Malthusian Trap, which means the edge of starvation, which means you have no surplus.