no coherent picture whatsoever, Redux

I find I regret the turn my analysis of Steve Landsburg's apology for the idle rich took, in the previous post.

I'm struggling to find a voice and a point-of-view, here, and, though, I am an ideological partisan, I do not particularly wish that point-of-view to simply echo the creed of those with whom I am aligned.  This blog is about what is wrong with economics, and what is wrong with economics is not that there is a Left and a Right, but that the Left and the Right disagree, unproductively.
The disagreement is more fundamental, more foundational than either side ordinarily acknowledges.  It is one thing to disagree, where agreement is possible; it is quite another to debate completely incommensurable frameworks.
Whether Steve Lansburg realizes it, or not, he is reasoning within a framework of meaning, while his liberal  interlocuters are reasoning within a framework of functional relationships.  It has become a mark of conservative economics, to reason from meaning.  And, that's crap.
And, it is also crap to reason about functional relations, and not address the need for meaning, even if the functional relationships are where the "science" is.