Socialdem. 21st Century

The talk below by Steve Keen is the first lecture in his introductory subject “Becoming an Economist” at Kingston University (in the UK), though personally I wish he had not shown that stupid rap video about Keynes and Hayek, which shows very little except that the tiresome libertarians who made it do not understand Keynes’ thought.[embedded content]

This is a lecture by Bill Mitchell given at the University of Helsinki on Friday, October 9, 2015. He discusses the Eurozone crisis and austerity. Some more background is here.[embedded content]

This is a talk by Walter Block on Austrian economics and its disagreements with neoclassical economics, given at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, the US, on 21 July, 2015.[embedded content]I want to focus on epistemological issues here.Let us review the epistemological problems here one by one: (1) the Austrians badly misunderstand the philosophy and epistemology of the logical positivists.For Austrians like Block the expression “logical positivism” is simply an ignorant term of abuse...

It can be summed up just by watching his comments here in the video below in an interview with Bryan Magee.Remember that Bryan Magee’s opening question (“But now it must have some real defects: what do you now in retrospect think that the main shortcomings of the movement were?”) refers to Ayer’s philosophy of logical positivism.[embedded content]Why was Ayer a great philosopher? Because in contrast to so many other philosophers whose work has obviously been debunked and refuted, but who...

It doesn’t matter how many times Rothbard’s view of the 1870s is refuted, Austrians and libertarians simply continue to shun reality and repeat Rothbard’s errors (such as here and here).It can’t hurt to review the data.First, industrial production. The best and most recent index of US industrial production in this era is Davis (2004) (see Hanes 2013: 121), which draws on many more industrial products and services than other, older indices.The data from Davis shows that US industrial...

The strange world of quantum mechanics seems to have a natural appeal to irrational and foolish people like Postmodernists and others who deny objective empirical truth or the laws of thought.In arguments with such people when you defend the reality of real objective empirical truths, you will frequently find such people immediately appealing to various weird phenomena in quantum mechanics to defend themselves. “Doesn’t quantum mechanics prove that there is no objective truth?,” they might...

Below are updated links to various posts on 19th century economic history, in the US, the UK, Australia and Japan, as well posts analysing the deflation of 1873 to 1896.(1) General“The Gold Standard did not Prevent Price Inflation,” October 26, 2012.“The Classical Gold Standard Era was a Myth,” March 18, 2013.“The Profit Deflation of the 1890s,” June 13, 2013.“Alfred Marshall’s Judgement on the ‘Depression’ of 1873–1896,” June 13, 2013.“S. B. Saul on the Profit Deflation of the 1873–1896...

I find the libertarian obsession with Paul Krugman to be both boring and bizarre. And now Robert Murphy, along with another Austrian called Tom Woods, has launched a “Contra Krugman” show, dedicated to debunking Krugman’s column regularly.Their second episode is here: “Ep. 2 Is More Government Debt What the World Needs Now?” This is dedicated to debunking Krugman’s column here: Paul Krugman, “Debt Is Good,” August 21, 2015. I want to focus on Tom Woods’ serious historical error below, one...

Books on Post Keynesian economics and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) appear every year, but over the past 9 years or so – especially after the financial crisis of 2008 – there seems to have been an embarrassment of riches in that many very good introductory and advanced books have appeared.I update below my earlier list of these recent books: Introductory Studies Davidson, Paul. 2009. The Keynes Solution: The Path to Global Economic Prosperity (1st edn). Palgrave Macmillan, New York and...

John E. King has a new book called Advanced Introduction to Post Keynesian Economics (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2015). Publisher details and the contents can be seen here. In particular, Chapter 8 is a discussion of the global financial crises of 2008 as interpreted in Post Keynesian theory.This looks like an excellent new book, and along with Marc Lavoie’s Post-Keynesian Economics: New Foundations (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2014) will be a foundational work for the advanced treatment of Post...