Lars P. Syll

Georgescu-Roegen — the bioeconomic approach to climate change and growth Positivism does not seem to realize at all that the concept of verifiability — or that the position that ‘the meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification’ — is covered by a dialectical penumbra in spite of the apparent rigor of the sentences used in the argument … I hope the reader will not take offense at the unavoidable conclusion that most of the time all of us talk...

Teaching of economics — captured by a small and dangerous sect The fallacy of composition basically consists of the false belief that the whole is nothing but the sum of its parts.  In the society and in the economy this is arguably not the case. An adequate analysis of society and economy a fortiori can’t proceed by just adding up the acts and decisions of individuals. The whole is more than a sum of parts. This fact shows up when mainstream economics...

John Searle — a sexual harasser John Searle, formerly a professor emeritus in UC Berkeley’s Department of Philosophy, has had his emeritus status revoked, along with all the privileges of that title, following a determination that he violated university policies against sexual harassment and retaliation. This action permanently removes him from the university community. He will not be eligible to teach, work with graduate students, maintain office space or...

On the nature of money and debt Perhaps we may elucidate the distinction between money and money-of-account by saying that the money-of-account is the description or title and the money is the thing which answers to the description. Now if the same thing always answered to the same description, the distinction would have no practical interest. But if the thing can change, whilst the description remains the same, then the distinction can be highly...

C’est le rêve des auteurs de politique-fiction. Qui, ailleurs que dans leurs fantasmes les plus fous, aurait imaginé qu’un jour les Etats-Unis et le Royaume-Uni, deux pays qui, séparément ou ensemble, ont dominé le monde, seraient dirigés par des hommes aussi disruptifs que Donald Trump et Boris Johnson ? La réalité, pourtant, est en passe de dépasser la fiction. Si tout se passe comme prévu, si, fin juillet, les militants du Parti conservateur britannique choisissent l’ancien...

The weird absence of money and finance in economic theory Consider the problem of money. Money is of central importance to any modern capitalist market economy. Yet it is mainly sociologists, philosophers and dissenters that have maintained an interest in what money “is” with a view to continued critique and development … One might think this is because economics has already provided an agreed clear concept of money. But this is not the case. Contemporary...

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A couple of years ago, in a lecture on the US recession, Robert Lucas gave an outline of what the New Classical school of macroeconomics today thinks on the latest downturns in the US economy and its future prospects. Lucas starts by showing that real US GDP has grown at an average yearly rate of 3 per cent since 1870, with one big dip during the Depression of the 1930s and a big – but smaller – dip in the recent recession. After stating his view that the US recession that...

Boris Johnson — la promesse d’une calamité pour le Royaume-Uni «Quelle révélation pourrait encore faire dérailler sa marche vers Downing Street, alors qu’il s’est maintes fois rendu coupable de mensonge, de tricherie, de déloyauté, de paresse, d’indiscrétion, d’incompétence, de mépris cynique pour les autres, sans jamais en subir les conséquences ? », se demandait la journaliste Sonia Purnell, une ancienne subordonnée de Boris Johnson pendant ses années de...

Bitte besteuert uns stärker! In einem offenen Brief haben sich mehrere reiche US-Unternehmer für die Einführung einer Vermögensteuer ausgesprochen. Zu den Initiatoren gehören etwa der Milliardär George Soros, Facebook-Mitbegründer Chris Hughes sowie Disney-Erben und die Besitzer der Hotelkette Hyatt. Sie rufen die Präsidentschaftsbewerber für die Wahl 2020 auf, eine gemäßigte Vermögensteuer zu unterstützen. “Amerika steht in der moralischen, ethischen und...