Imagine alchemists seizing the chemistry laboratories, astrologers chasing the scientists from the observatories, and creationists taking over genetics. Each would be a defeat of the Enlightenment, reason and rationality. This happened in economics. Over the last thirty years, the alconomists seized the profession and purged the economists.

They preach their own version of Creationism, that free and unregulated markets are the only possible way to organize society. Like the alchemists they have a Philosopher’s Stone, competition. Similarly to their fellow charlatans the astrologers, they claim to see the future.

In my lectures I shall not use the phrase «mainstream economics» or «neoclassical economics». I shall apply the accurate identifier, «alconomics» or the «alconomics school», strictly analogous to the opposition between alchemy and chemistry, and astrology and astronomy. In order that this word not be interpreted as a mere term of abuse and insult (which it certainly is), I must define it.

Alconomics is the study of exchange relationships that have no counterpart in the real world. Those exchanges are endowed with metaphysical powers that bestow contentment and satisfaction upon their participants. These market exchanges are voluntary, timeless and carried out by a large number omniscient creatures of equal prowess. These creatures know all possible outcomes and the likelihood of every exchange, so they are never surprised. In alconomics no difference exists among the past, present ad future.

People who analyze the economy and how it operates in practice are dismissed by the alconomists as vulgar empiricists, ignorant and blasphemous. This vulgarity and ignorance is frequently attributed to insufficient use of mathematics. A useful way for the non-specialist to appreciate the role of alconomics in society is to recognize it as a religious sect with an extremely doctrinaire priesthood that zealously guards its doctrines, the most important of which is the magic of markets. The alconomists are no more economists than alchemists are chemists or astrologers are astronomers.

Alconomics as in Alchemy: Theory and Policy in Neoclassical ‘Economics’

Jornadas de Politica Economica
Universidad Nacional de Quilmes
Buenos Aires
20-22 March 2012

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Entrevista a John Weeks