If anyone would have developed a thorough, persuasive answer to the question of why economists support central banking, it would be Greg Mankiw.
This sort of lead-up to the fallacy (A->B) → (notA->notB) is too transparent. I would suggest just cutting out the fallacy and letting the claim that economists don’t have a theoretical reason to prefer central banking develop more naturally over the next paragraph or three.
Now, and this might be presumptuous, but there is an obvious explanation for why economists would be entirely uncurious about central banking and be perfectly content with that state of affairs.
I think it is definitely too presumptuous. First of all you’re asserting at least one property of economists that you haven’t even tested (uncuriousness) rather than a property of the economics literature which you’ve at least started to search (doesn’t have any well-known theoretical proofs that central banks are a good idea). Also your second argument is at least 2 experiments removed from having a leg to stand on.
The problem is I don’t know how to show the absence of arguments for central banking, so a quote by someone as authoritative as Mankiw is really useful, even though it certainly isn’t logical proof.
I think it is definitely too presumptuous. First of all you’re asserting at least one property of economists that you haven’t even tested (uncuriousness) rather than a property of the economics literature which you’ve at least started to search (doesn’t have any well-known theoretical proofs that central banks are a good idea). Also your second argument is at least 2 experiments removed from having a leg to stand on.
What is the difference exactly between the economists and their literature? I mean, if they should be asking a question, and I can’t find the answer to the question in the literature and I can’t even find the question itself anywhere, and I can’t even find anyone pointing out how weird it is that the question isn’t asked, what should I conclude other than a lack of curiosity?
Economists are pretty comfortable asserting self-interest as an explanation for anything where it possibly could be an explanation in the absence of disconfirming evidence, because we’re that confident in the generality and power of self-interest as a motivator. You would need to do the experiment proving that it isn’t self-interest—if the subject were anything other than central banking.
This sort of lead-up to the fallacy (A->B) → (notA->notB) is too transparent. I would suggest just cutting out the fallacy and letting the claim that economists don’t have a theoretical reason to prefer central banking develop more naturally over the next paragraph or three.
I think it is definitely too presumptuous. First of all you’re asserting at least one property of economists that you haven’t even tested (uncuriousness) rather than a property of the economics literature which you’ve at least started to search (doesn’t have any well-known theoretical proofs that central banks are a good idea). Also your second argument is at least 2 experiments removed from having a leg to stand on.
The problem is I don’t know how to show the absence of arguments for central banking, so a quote by someone as authoritative as Mankiw is really useful, even though it certainly isn’t logical proof.
What is the difference exactly between the economists and their literature? I mean, if they should be asking a question, and I can’t find the answer to the question in the literature and I can’t even find the question itself anywhere, and I can’t even find anyone pointing out how weird it is that the question isn’t asked, what should I conclude other than a lack of curiosity?
Economists are pretty comfortable asserting self-interest as an explanation for anything where it possibly could be an explanation in the absence of disconfirming evidence, because we’re that confident in the generality and power of self-interest as a motivator. You would need to do the experiment proving that it isn’t self-interest—if the subject were anything other than central banking.