Tag Archives: Economics

Unlike anthropologists … economists simply invent the primitive societies we study, a practice which frees us from limiting ourselves to societies which can be physically visited as sparing us the discomforts of long stays among savages. This method of society-invention is the source of the utopian character of economics; and of the mix of distrust and envy with which we are viewed by our fellow social scientists. The point of studying wholly fictional, rather than actual...

Why the euro has to be abandoned The euro has taken away the possibility for national governments to manage their economies in a meaningful way — and the people have​ had to pay the true costs of its concomitant misguided austerity policies. The unfolding of the repeated economic crises in Euroland during the last decade has shown beyond any doubt that the euro is not only an economic project​ but just as much a political one. What the neoliberal revolution...

What’s the use of economics? The simple question that was raised during a recent conference … was to what extent has — or should — the teaching of economics be modified … The simple answer is that the economics profession is unlikely to change. Why would economists be willing to give up much of their human capital, painstakingly nurtured for over two centuries? For macroeconomists in particular, the reaction has been to suggest that modifications of...

Twenty fallacies of modern economics 11) To criticise/oppose the current mathematical modelling emphasis is to adopt an antiscience stance. It is not. Mathematics is not essential (or inessential) to science; science involves using tools that are appropriate to the given task. A science of economics is perfectly feasible, and the current emphasis on mathematical modelling in economics serves, given the nature of social reality, mostly to prevent that...

I veckans avsnitt av Starta Pressarna intervjuas Clara E. Mattei — författare till boken Kapitalets ordning: Hur ekonomer skapade åtstramningsdoktrinen och banade väg för fascismen  (Verbal förlag, 2023) — och diskuteras hennes tes om att den ekonomiska åtstramningspolitiken historiskt växt fram som ett sätt att hålla tillbaka arbetarklassen. Som alltid på den här podden — både intressant och tankeväckande! För många konservativa och nyliberala politiker och...

Methodology — the main problem with mainstream economics The basic problems mostly originate at the level of methodology, and in particular with the current emphasis on methods of mathematical modelling. The latter emphasis is an error given the lack of match of the methods in question to the conditions in which they are applied. So long as the critical focus remains only, or even mainly or centrally, at the level of substantive economic theory and/or...

Top 25 Heterodox Economics Books Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867) Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) Joseph Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development (1911) Nikolai Kondratiev, The Major Economic Cycles (1925) Gunnar Myrdal, The Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory (1930) John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory (1936) Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (1944) Paul Sweezy, Theory of Capitalist Development...

Keynes and Ramsey on probability .[embedded content] Although Blackburn on the whole gives a succinct and correct picture of Keynes’s view on probability, I think it’s necessary to somewhat qualify in what way and to what extent Keynes “lost” the debate with Frank Ramsey. In economics, it’s an indubitable fact that few mainstream neoclassical economists work within the Keynesian paradigm. All more or less subscribe to some variant of Bayesianism. And some...

Austrian economics — a methodological critique .[embedded content] This is a fair presentation and critique of Austrian methodology. But beware! In theoretical and methodological questions it is not always either-or. We have to be open-minded and pluralistic enough not to throw out the baby with the bath water — and fail to secure insights like this: What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order? … If we possess all...

Angus Deaton rethinking economics Like many others, I have recently found myself changing my mind, a discomfiting process for someone who has been a practicing economist for more than half a century. I will come to some of the substantive topics, but I start with some general failings. I do not include the corruption allegations that have become common in some debates. Even so, economists, who have prospered mightily over the past half century, might fairly...