Harvard dropped the foreign language requirement for Econ PhDs at the beginning of the Sixties. Why? The answer is that German Economists were utterly rubbish. Reading their turgid tomes made people stupid. Meanwhile, good mathematicians were getting promoted to the sort of top jobs Economists coveted.



It is quite true that most mathematical economists were rubbish but this is because they were stupid and ignorant. However, because they wrote in mathematical terms it was relatively easy to show why they were wrong. Had they written in a heavy Teutonic style no one could have proved this.

Both Marxist as well as neo-Classical General Equilibrium theory benefited- in a negative way- from the use of mathematical methods. By the early Seventies, there were mathematical proofs that neither system could achieve its ideal. Moreover, once information and uncertainty gained mathematical representation actual decision making could improve. There's a reason Amazon hires a lot of Econ PhDs. But the ones they hire have mathematical nous.



It is true that Econ degrees still gas on about utility maximisation rather than regret minimization- i.e. they ignore Knightian uncertainty. However, Econ graduates aren't highly regarded and are going to be doing grunt work. A few ex-engineering or Physics students who migrate to Econ for a PhD may get top jobs. But this is by way of window dressing merely.



When did Economists ever have 'an Empire'? I suppose 'peak Econ' is associated with Nixon coming out as a Keynesian and trying a Wage/Price freeze. But that collapsed almost immediately. Friedman and Hayek and the Supply siders and so on were actually anti-Economists. They only gained salience because Governments discovered that mass unemployment would not cause a voter rebellion.



There was a time when 'Nobel prize winning economist' meant something. However, thanks to the internet, such people have been exposed as exemplars of 'Rothbard's law'- viz. eminent economists specialize in what they are worst at. They double down on their adolescent errors.



The Soviet Union had some great mathematical economists- like Kantorovich. But nobody listened to them till Gorbachev consulted a couple and, very foolishly, surrendered Party control of the Economy which, predictably, led to a 'scissors crisis' and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Japan also had some great mathematical economists. But they were never listened to during its boom years. South Korea listened to one economist- Irma Adelman, who wasn't much of a mathematician- and prospered greatly. But their economists looked enviously to India which had plenty of great mathematical economists and a horrible shambles of an economy which some of them had presided over.

Israel had a greatish economist in the shape of Don Patinkin. He does not seem to have had any effect whatsoever on that country's crazy- but crazily successful!- trajectory.



Sidelsky believes 'Western power' sustained a Western conceit regarding the Universal applicability of socio-economic laws or principles. The truth is quite different. The West colonized or achieved hegemony over large tracts of the world long before it had any such ideology. Imperial Spain and Portugal did not have any enlightenment to speak off till their Empires were moribund. England may have had a Benthamite ideology in India for a brief period but this 'occidentalism' soon gave way to not just 'orientalism' but 'ornamentalism'- i.e. the pretense of economic rationality was quietly dropped in preference for indulgence in pageantry and play-acting.



It may be that History students benefit from learning foreign languages. However, they would benefit even more from learning their own language properly. This will enable them to understand why they are studying History rather than doing something productive. I myself was a scholar of history until I found out that when my father introduced me at parties as 'my son, the cretin who is reading history', he was not in fact praising me. The word cretin means a very stupid person. That is why I gave up History in favor of Economics. My father would introduce me at parties as 'my son, the buddhu, who is studying Econ'. I think the word 'buddhu' means 'Buddha' and is a term of high praise in the East. Since I was no longer studying History, I was under no obligation to learn Hindi and thus verify that this supposition of mine was accurate.



What should 'social scientists' be looking for? The answer is not a mathesis universalis or universal language. They need to find Structural Causal Models such that changing a causative factor leads to an improved outcome. If they do so, their arcane research 'pays for itself'. If not, they are merely part of a corrupt Credentialized ponzi scheme which cheats students out of their time and money.