Lars P. Syll

 [embedded content] As young research stipendiate in the U.S. — in the early ’80s — yours truly remember reading several of Anwar Shaikh’s articles on the poverty of neo-Ricardian economics, the laws of production, and crisis theories. He was a great inspiration at the time. He still is.

Keynes on the additivity fallacy The unpopularity of the principle of organic unities shows very clearly how great is the danger of the assumption of unproved additive formulas. The fallacy, of which ignorance of organic unity is a particular instance, may perhaps be mathematically represented thus: suppose f(x) is the goodness of x and f(y) is the goodness of y. It is then assumed that the goodness of x and y together is f(x) + f(y) when it is clearly f(x...

When the seas and mountains fall (personal) People say time heals all wounds. I wish that were true. But some wounds never heal — you just learn to live with the scars. In memory of Kristina Syll — beloved wife and mother of David and Tora.  [embedded content]

The end of all things  [embedded content]

Pandemic depression antidote (XXII)  [embedded content]

Hegel — wenn der Geist aufs Ganze geht [embedded content] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ist unbestritten einer der wichtigsten philosophischen Denker der Neuzeit. Aber — 250 Jahre nach der Geburt des deutschen Philosophen kann man sich fragen: Was bleibt von Hegel? Wer war er? Was wollte er? Und wie würde er unsere Gegenwart und Zukunft fassen?

Econometrics — science based on questionable presumptions What we are asked to assume is that the precept can be carried out in economics by techniques which are established for linear systems, serially independent disturbances, error-free observations, and samples of a size not generally obtainable in economic time series today. In view of such limitations, anyone using these techniques must find himself appealing at every stage less to what theory is...

None of this is an argument in favor of taking a road along which there is less rigorous thinking. Our problem is much more that we have developed our models using certain mathematical techniques and that we have become slaves to those techniques. It is surely this more than anything else that has led us to persist with a model that, to any outsider, seems such a poor description of what actually happens in markets. The real world is one in which various market forms coexist,...

You can’t touch this  [embedded content]

Jag ska fånga en ängel  [embedded content] Människor som det på något vis känns som om de varit med oss hela livet är alltid svårt att mista. Det är en tröst att Teds och Kenneths underbara musik fortfarande finns kvar — men att de inte längre vandrar vid min sida kommer jag aldrig att kunna förlika mig med.