Real-World Economics Review

from Lars Syll This is an important and fundamentally correct critique of the core methodology of economics: individualistic; analytical; ahistorical; asocial; and apolitical. What economics understands is important. What it ignores is, alas, equally important. As Skidelsky, famous as the biographer of Keynes, notes, “to maintain that market competition is a self-sufficient ordering principle is wrong. Markets are embedded in political institutions and moral beliefs.” Economists need to...

from Dean Baker That seems to be the implication of a David Sanger piece commenting on the state of U.S. relations with Russia and China. At one point Sanger notes that China is a rising economic power: “Economists debate when the Chinese will have the world’s largest gross domestic product — perhaps toward the end of this decade” Actually, China already has the world’s largest economy using purchasing power parity measures of GDP, which is what most economists view as the best basis of...

from Blair Fix and current RWER issue A key problem with eugenics is that it neglects the social nature of human traits. It assumes that productivity is an innate trait of the individual, and that breeding for this trait would lead to a better society. It is a seductive idea that is deeply flawed. In all likelihood, selectively breeding people for productivity would, like chickens, lead to a psychopathic strain of human. The rise of human capital theory After the horrors of the Holocaust,...

from Lars Syll In mainstream macroeconomics, there has for long been an insistence on formalistic (mathematical) modelling, and to some economic methodologists (e.g. Lawson 2015, Syll 2016) this has forced economists to give up on realism and substitute axiomatics for real world relevance. According to the critique, the deductivist orientation has been the main reason behind the difficulty that mainstream economics has had in terms of understanding, explaining and predicting what takes...

from Geoff Davies and current issue of RWER I propose that economists leave philosophy alone for a while and instead try analysing some actual economic observations. I have observed much discussion among heterodox economists about what science comprises, whether one could do “scientific” economics, and what ontology, epistemology, etc., etc., might be involved. If, for example, economies are historically contingent, how could one hope to do a rigorous analysis. I have also observed much...

from Peter Radford We have heard a great deal in the American media about the so-called Biden reform agenda.  The huge injection of government spending into our hibernating economy is meant not just to sustain it until we arrive at a post-pandemic moment when it will spring back to life by itself, but also to reform it.  That is to say the $1.9 trillion package is not just disaster relief, but is also politically motivated to change the economic landscape beyond the pandemic. I think the...

from Duncan Austin and current issue of RWER The key issue is not that economics is not a valuable way of thinking – it clearly is – but rather that the discipline lost sight of its boundaries and unwittingly propagated an exaggerated sense of its scope. Ironically, it achieved this by fatefully downplaying the significance of one of its own discoveries made a century ago. Given the profound influence of economics within modern culture, this oversight cannot be dismissed as mere academic...

from Lars Syll The situation started to change in the 1960s, when antirealism went on the rampage in the social studies community as well as in Anglo-American philosophy. This movement seems to have had two sources, one philosophical, the other political. The former was a reaction against positivism, which was (mistakenly but conveniently) presented as objectivist simply because it shunned mental states. I submit that the political source of contemporary antirealism was the rebellion of...

download whole issue Is a capitalist steady-state economy possible? Is it better in socialism? Theodore P. Lianos The “ideal market” as a normative figure of thoughtTanja von Egan-Krieger The rise of human capital theory Blair Fix How downward redistribution makes America richerSteve Roth The moral dilemma and asymmetric economic impact of COVID-19Constantine E. Passaris Pigou and the dropped stitch of economicsDuncan Austin Third world development:...

Pharmaceutical companies are making obscene profits off the vaccine, and yet they are withholding them, using trade rules from developing nations. Our guest, Economist Dean Baker, doesn't rule out Julianna's theory that this may actually be part of a plan to neglectfully allow various strains to develop and thus provide reason for people to want/need a covid vaccine every year forever and even and ever. And the New York Times is making it all ok. Go figure. Dean Baker co-founded The Center...