Robert Vienneau: Thoughts Economics

The first is a distateful counting of the victims of capitalism in the twentieth century. The second concludes that no-longer-actually-existing socialism was about as efficient as western countries. The last argues that general prosperity first declined with the introduction of capitalism. Salvatore Engel-DiMauro. 2021. Anti-communism and the hundres of millions of victims of capitalism. Capitalism Nature Socialism 32(1): 1-17. Peter Murrell. 1991. Can neoclassical economics underpin the...

Figure 1: Variation in the Maximum Wage and the Cost-Minimizing Technique with Time This post presents an example in which some coefficients of production vary from those in example. Reswitching, capital reversing, and the reverse substitution of labor do not arise in this example. Table 1 shows the coefficients of production for this example. The labor coefficients vary identically with the the labor coefficients in the previous example. a2,1(a), a3,1(a), a2,1(b), a3,1(b), a1,2(c),...

I have been reading Brown (2015). She acknowledges neoliberalism is difficult to define: "Three decades out, rich accounts by geographers, economists, political theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and historians grappling with these questions have established that neoliberalism is neither singular nor constant in its discursive formulations and material practices. This recognition exceeds the idea that a clumsy or inapt name is draped over a busy multiplicity; rather...

Figure 1: Variation in the Maximum Wage and the Cost-Minimizing Technique with Time1.0 Introduction I thought I would revisit the application of my analysis of fluke switch points to an example of Harrod-neutral technical change. Two techniques are assumed to experience Harrod-neutral technical change. The same commodities are produced with both techniques. No capital goods are produced for one technique that are unproduced in the other. Consequently, the techniques have no processes in...

[embedded content]Hakim on the Economic Calculation Problem Reactionaries often bring up the Economic Calculation Problem (ECP) as a fatal objection to socialism, considered as entailing central planning. Ludwig Von Mises put this forth in 1920 as an argument in principle that central planning is guaranteed to be highly inefficient. He postulates that the planning authority knows the prices of consumer goods and all technical possibilities, including the endowments of originary factors of...

I feel each of these three needs more than I am able to say. I find intriguing radicals attacking communist parties from the left, as Negri and others (Autonomia) did in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. I draw on those who have all sorts of arguments with Solow. I find him witty. Thirwall I associate with Nicholas Kaldor and development economics. Antonio Negri (1933 - 2023). Repost of 2015 interview from Democracy Now. Libcom page of works related to Negri. Robert Solow (1924 - 2023): MIT...

I claim that what mainstream economists teach about what Keynes wrote is often false and nonsenical. Unfortunately, this is quite impressionistic in that I do not give examples of these misrepresentations. I am writing here only about the General Theory. I suppose some mainstream economists might respond that they do not teach about Keynes at all. Some say Keynes work was about policy, not theory. Keynes specifically says otherwise in the first sentences of the preface to his major work:...

Socialist and coomunist parties have formed various internationals over the course of centuries. I consider a declaration of the Socialist International, adopted at its First Congress held in Frankfort-on-Main on 30 June-3 July 1951 an authoritative statement of "The Aims and Tasks of Democratic Socialism". This declaration was re-affirmed in 1962. The declaration starts as follows: 1. From the nineteenth century onwards, capitalism has developed immense productive forces. It has done so...

I read Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of our Time years ago. I find its thesis on the first passage of the first chapter: "Nineteenth-century civilization rested on four institutions. The first was the balance-of-power system which for a century prevented the occurrence of any long and devastating war between the Great Powers. The second was the international gold standard which symbolized a unique organization of world economy. The third was...

We live, dead to the land beneath us, Ten steps away no one hears our speeches. But where there’s so much as half a conversation The Kremlin's mountaineer will get his mention. His fingers are fat as grubs, And the words, final as lead weights, fall from his mouth. His cockroache whiskers leer And his boot tops gleam. Around him a rabble of ring-necked leaders - Fawning half men for him to play with. They whinny, purr or whine. As he prates and points a finger. One by one...