by From Thomas Palley Almost fifty years ago the renowned Swedish econographer, Professor Axel Leijonhufvud (1973), wrote a seminal study on the Econ tribe titled “Life among the Econ”. Back then the Econ were divided into sub-tribes which referred to themselves as the Micro and the Macro. . . . The new sectarian make-up of the Macro can be traced back to the doctrines of “K” and “M” which Professor Leijonhufvd identified fifty years ago. The doctrine of K concerns itself with what is the productive essence of the econoverse, and whether K is malleable putty that can be lumped into a dough ball or whether it is baked clay. It is associated with the Post Keynesians. The doctrine of M concerns itself with what powers the econoverse. It too raises many questions, including how to measure
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from Thomas Palley
Almost fifty years ago the renowned Swedish econographer, Professor Axel Leijonhufvud (1973), wrote a seminal study on the Econ tribe titled “Life among the Econ”. Back then the Econ were divided into sub-tribes which referred to themselves as the Micro and the Macro. . . .
The new sectarian make-up of the Macro can be traced back to the doctrines of “K” and “M” which Professor Leijonhufvd identified fifty years ago. The doctrine of K concerns itself with what is the productive essence of the econoverse, and whether K is malleable putty that can be lumped into a dough ball or whether it is baked clay. It is associated with the Post Keynesians. The doctrine of M concerns itself with what powers the econoverse. It too raises many questions, including how to measure M? Whether more M is a necessary condition for more power (the crowding-out controversy)? Whether more M does anything at all (the neutrality controversy)? And whether M can be home grown or only drops like mana from heaven (the endogeneity controversy. . . .
The tragedy of the Macro is their argumentativeness and intolerance. The powerful New Keynesians and New Classicals are dismissively indifferent to the Keynesians and Post Keynesians. Meanwhile, many among the Post (Pure) Keynesians are prone to intolerant infighting amongst themselves. That state of affairs has rendered adoption of mixed intellectual sympathies a heresy in most of the many sects of the Macro, and it is punishable by ostracization.
Fifty years on, the Econ are still not a happy people and other tribes sometimes refer to them as the “Dismals”. The Econ believe they are unhappy because they study the econoverse which they claim is a tough neighborhood. However, to the econographer’s eye their unhappiness is better explained as being a product of their difficulties accepting theonomic differences.