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经济学与文化战争

伦敦—我一直批评经济学不接地气，所产生的人类行为“模型”充其量只能作作讽刺漫画，甚至可以说只是对真实世界的拙劣模仿。在我的新书《经济学有什么问题？》（What’s Wrong with Economics?）中，我指出，经济学家试图建立放之四海而皆准的定律，而一厢情愿地忽视了历史和文化的特殊性。

经济学家兼社会学家索尔斯坦·凡伯伦（Thorstein Veblen）睿智地捕捉到这一盲点。在一篇1908年的文章中，凡伯伦想象经济学家要用效用最大化解释“一群用耙子和魔法咒语在海藻和海浪间寻找贝壳的阿留申群岛岛民”的行为。

在十九世纪，经济学的实践者决定要让他们的研究与所谓的“硬科学”，特别是物理学联系起来，与历史学等“人文”学科拉开距离。经济学研究的是人如何处理生计这一普通行为。他们的野心是要构建社会的“物理学”，社会结构就像自然结构那样遵循亘古不变的定律。于是，解释行星围绕太阳运动的轨道的万有引力定律，有了它在经济学中的对等物——确保市场均衡的自利定律。

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