Alt title: 3 Old White Men Discover Colonialsm Bad

  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    How is the culture minister the “same people” as the Royal Academy of Sciences?

    Did you also teach your students about ethnic prejudice?

    • Michael H. Jenkins@infosec.pub
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      1 month ago

      Sorry about that, I mistook you for someone else. The Royal Academy of Sciences doesn’t administer the Nobel Prize for Economics, which isn’t one of the five official Nobel Prizes and thus overseen by a complex mix of the Swedish government–including the Academy of Sciences–and the Sveringes Riksbank.

      Oh boy, ethnic prejudice: my own academic researched focused on borders and migration in colonial and post-colonial states and I taught US and World History on both the high school and college level. Race, racism, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and colonialism/post-colonialism pervade all of those subjects and were constants throughout my curriculum.

      • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        The economics prize is funded by Sveringes Riksbank but they are not involved in selecting a winner. Neither is the government. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is solely responsible for selecting the winner, and it is not part of government.

        Here’s the thing about economics: the “dismal science” is often trying to prove - or disprove - what appears to be common sense.

        For instance, to some it’s common sense that minimum wage increases cause more unemployment. To others, it’s common sense that they don’t. Eventually economists will reach a consensus, and it will be “not news” to half the population.

        Since you’ve done research in this field, you must be aware that Acemoglu and Robinson have been publishing on this topic for ~20 years. Is there some earlier economist who was not properly given credit for their results?

        • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          Here’s the thing: Economics is not a science.

          For instance, there’s no scientific “answer” to whether minimum wage causes more unemployment because it’s not a simplistic, binary question. It depends on a wide variety of social factors that are largely untestable, unfalsifiable, etc. The question itself is based on deep ideological assumptions (eg. it’s desirable for people to be even more used/employed).

          The issue of living wages is a social issue around basic human needs. Many and maybe most economists are paid precisely to justify the denial of human needs. That’s what econ is really about. So there will never be any consensus on this phony “issue”.