Untestable economic theories breed intellectual intolerance and absolutism.

Evidence

Friedman believed that the practitioners of praxeology were incapable of engaging in productive and open interchange with their colleagues. He told an interviewer that in admitting “no role whatsoever for empirical evidence,” its practitioners developed “an attitude of human intolerance.” He repeatedly stressed that his goal was to maintain “humility”: to practice a mode of economic reasoning that avoided any claims to absolute truth or certainty, and that provided an objective basis for settling differences of opinion. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 409

Categorization

• XREF: Friedman recasts what critics called dogmatic free-market ideology as methodological humility — a rhetorical inversion connected to the broader MPS self-presentation as open-minded. — connects to: Economic theories function as analytic engines rather than exact copies of reality.; Economic rationality is founded on the unknowability of the whole economic process — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1453; Neoclassical economics as a whole is a zombie tradition resistant to refutation — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 66 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoclassical economics as a whole is a zombie tradition resistant to refutation #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 66
• Economic theories function as analytic engines rather than exact copies of reality. #qualifies (0.78)
• Economic rationality is founded on the unknowability of the whole economic process #expands (0.75) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1453