Lars P. Syll

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Arrow-Debreu and the Bourbaki illusion of rigour By the time that we have arrived at the peak first climbed by Arrow and Debreu, the central question boils down to something rather simple. We can phrase the question in the context of an exchange economy, but producers can be, and are, incorporated in the model. There is a rather arid economic environment referred to as a purely competitive market in which individuals receive signals as to the prices of all...

Economics — an axiomatically based science doomed to fail A modern economy is a very complicated system. Since we cannot conduct controlled experiments on its smaller parts, or even observe them in isolation, the classical hard-science devices for discriminating between competing hypotheses are closed to us. The main alternative device is the statistical analysis of historical time-series. But then another difficulty arises. The competing hypotheses are...

Economics — science succumbed to universalist temptations All social sciences, to a greater or lesser degree, start with a yearning for a universal language, into which they can fit such particulars as suit their view of things. Their model of knowledge thus aspires to the precision and generality of the natural sciences. Once we understand human behavior in terms of some universal and – crucially – ahistorical principle, we can aspire to control (and of...

Additivity — a dangerous assumption 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...

Boris Johnson — the habitual liar Es war eine theatralische Szene, wie Boris Johnson sie liebt. Er trat in Ostlondon auf, zum letzten Mal bevor die Tory-Mitglieder am Montag über ihren künftigen Parteichef und damit auch über den nächsten Premierminister abstimmen. Dabei wedelte der Kandidat mit einem in Plastikfolie eingeschweißten Hering. Der käme von einem Fischräucherer auf der Isle of Man. “Nach Jahrzehnten, in denen diese Heringe einfach per Post...

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