Lars P. Syll

Sjukvården behöver en ny styråra Den svenska Hälso- och sjukvårdslagen har satts ur spel. Beslutet att låta det vinstdrivande vårdbolaget Kry ta över sjukvårdsrådgivningen 1177 i Region Stockholm är det senaste av en lång rad beslut som lett fram till ett systemskifte inom svensk sjukvård … De privata vårdbolagens fria etableringsrätt ställer till problem för regionerna som måste förse bolagen med skattepengar, men som numera inte har rätt att styra vården...

Mainstream economics — nonsense masquerading as science Assumptions in scientific theories/models are often based on (mathematical) tractability (and so necessarily simplifying) and used for more or less self-evidently necessary theoretical consistency reasons. But one should also remember that assumptions are selected for a specific purpose, and so the arguments (in economics shamelessly often totally non-existent) put forward for having selected a...

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Häften för Kritiska Studier År 1968 utkom det första numret av Häften för kritiska studier. Under de mer än femtio år som gått sedan dess har mer än 200 nummer utkommit. För att fira detta tog några av tidskriftens redaktions-medlemmar ett initiativ till en jubileumsskrift som kom ut i början av år 2020. Yours truly har ett bidrag med i skriften och tänkte därför ta tillfället i akt att säga något lite mer personligt om denna fantastiska tidskrift som...

Let me conclude the discussion of rational-choice theory by emphasizing again its radically subjective nature … The rationality of beliefs is a completely different matter from that of their truth. Whereas truth is a feature of the relation between the belief and the world, rationality is a feature of the relation between the belief and the evidence possessed by the agent. Although rationality may require the agent to invest in new information, the investment is always...

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Mainstream economics — a waste of time on a staggering scale Though an enthusiast of reason, I believe that rational choice theory has failed abysmally, and it saddens me that this failure has brought discredit upon the very enterprise of serious theorizing in the field of social study … Rational choice theory is far too ambitious. In fact, it claims to explain everything social in terms of just three assumptions that would hold for all individuals in all...

The Keynes-Ramsey-Savage debate on probability Mainstream economics nowadays usually assumes that agents that have to make choices under conditions of uncertainty behave according to Bayesian rules, axiomatized by Ramsey (1931) and Savage (1954) — that is, they maximize expected utility with respect to some subjective probability measure that is continually updated according to Bayes theorem. If not, they are supposed to be irrational, and ultimately — via...

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother .[embedded content] In loving memory of my brother Peter. Twenty years have passed. People say time heals all wounds. I wish that was true. But some wounds never heal — you just learn to live with the scars. But in dreams, I can hear your name. And in dreams, We will meet again. When the seas and mountains fall And we come to end of days, In the dark I hear a call Calling me there I will go there And back again.

My favourite Italian teacher .[embedded content]