This paper considers Charles Dickens’ charge that by relying too exclusively on statistics, political economists simply cannot understand the human dimension of the questions they examine and the policies they propose to reform economic conditions. Particular attention, is paid to three of...

Thomas Carlyle’s criticism of economics goes far beyond his epithet, “Dismal Science.” One aspect of economics that attracted his attention was its use of numbers in both theories and empiricisms. Here is explored his attacks on economist’s use of arithmetic in explaining human behavior,...

I argue that math, like love, can cover a multitude of sins, and I use the neoclassical object of adoration, the Arrow-Debreu model, as the case in point. It is commonplace that the Arrow-Debreu (AD) model of general equilibrium does not describe the real world, but it is equally commonplace to...

The growth of managed care has been accompanied by calls for increased government regulation because HMOs and other forms of managed care are seen by the public as more concerned about controlling costs than with protecting the rights of patients to quality care. This paper applies a theory of...

Those who believe that the free market is positively related to both economic efficiency and individual freedom are prone to regard resistance to the establishment of the global market essentially free from any serious sociopolitical constraint as a politically insignificant expression of...

Modern game theory is connected with its ancient Greek originals in three respects. 1. The notion of rationality operative in game theory is the formal notion of consistency, whether of beliefs, desires, or choices. Just as Aristotle’s formal logic is the first system for determining the...