> this uses massive oversimplifications that never apply in the real world
If you've read Das Capital, you have noticed it also uses massive oversimplifications in its models.
> imply some incontrovertible nature to free markets that simply does not exist. Spherical cows indeed.
Das Kapital (as one can guess from its name) also studies the spherical cow of the free market. The implication of incontrovertible nature, that's something in people's heads though, not in the models.
> There was an article posted here recently about “mathy” equations that this reminds me of.
Any math model (including models described in Das Kapital) is either going to be oversimplified or "mathy". The only other choice is non-math models, which doesn't seem very useful if you want to talk about money, prices, profits and other numerical stuff.
If you've read Das Capital, you have noticed it also uses massive oversimplifications in its models.
> imply some incontrovertible nature to free markets that simply does not exist. Spherical cows indeed.
Das Kapital (as one can guess from its name) also studies the spherical cow of the free market. The implication of incontrovertible nature, that's something in people's heads though, not in the models.
> There was an article posted here recently about “mathy” equations that this reminds me of.
Any math model (including models described in Das Kapital) is either going to be oversimplified or "mathy". The only other choice is non-math models, which doesn't seem very useful if you want to talk about money, prices, profits and other numerical stuff.