Economists Have Routinely Rejected the Postulate That Economic Theory Should Be Realistic

For more than forty years, economists have routinely rejected the postulate that economic theory should be realistic. Ever since Milton Friedman (1953) sketchily outlined a positivistic methodology for economics, most students of our science have come to endorse Friedman’s view and have claimed that the only quality standard of economic reasoning was its predictive power. Good theories yield fairly correct predictions whereas bad theories yield wrong predictions.... One of the few schools of economic thought that has consistently adhered to the postulate of economic realism is the Austrian School.

--Jörg Guido Hülsmann, "Economic Science and Neoclassicism," Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 2, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 3.