Monday, March 5, 2018

Dirk Ehnts — A short comment on Temin and Vines on Keynes

… For those that want to understand how Keynes is relevant for the 21st century I would recommend reading the original books – now in public domain – or modern books from Post-Keynesian/Modern Monetary Theory authors.
econoblog 101
A short comment on Temin and Vines on Keynes
Dirk Ehnts | Lecturer at Bard College Berlin

3 comments:

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Forget Keynes
Comment on Dirk Ehnts on ‘A short comment on Temin and Vines on Keynes’

There is political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.

Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years. This is the track record: provably false
• profit theory, since 200+ years,
• Walrasian microfoundations (including equilibrium), since 140+ years,
• Keynesian macrofoundations (including I=S/IS-LM), since 80+ years.

Heterodoxy claims that Orthodoxy from Walras/Marshall to DSGE is false. This, of course, is true. However, Heterodoxy claims also that Keynesian economics is a valid replacement for Orthodoxy. This is provably false. Keynesianism, too, is proto-scientific junk.#1

It has been argued: “Lord John Maynard Keynes invented the entire field of macroeconomics in response to the Great Depression in 1929, which could not be understood according to economic theories dominant until then.” (Zaman)

Keynes, too, was an incompetent scientist and if there ever was a political agenda pusher then he. Keynes saw the necessity of a paradigm shift but he messed up the move from microfoundations to macrofoundations.

Fact is: Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism is mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent and ALL approaches got profit theory, employment theory, and the theory of money wrong.

It has been argued: “It should be immediately obvious that active government involvement in creating full employment helps the bottom 90%. It is slightly less obvious that monetary expansion, which may create inflation, is also helpful to the poorer segment of society. This is because the poor are generally borrowers of money, so the value of their debt in real terms becomes reduced. Similarly, easy money makes it easier for them to borrow. At the same time, Keynesian policies hurt the top 1%.” (Zaman)

The claim that Keynes fought for the cause of ninety-nine-percenters and against the one-percenters is false. In effect, the opposite is true.#2

Heterodoxy’s repetitive critique of Orthodoxy has run into the dead end.#3 Heterodoxy, too, is scientifically worthless political economics. It is time to forget the whole proto-scientific blather and to move on: “The moral of the story is simply this: it takes a new theory, and not just the destructive exposure of assumptions or the collection of new facts, to beat an old theory.” (Blaug)

Time to bury failed/fake scientists for good and to leave the creepy intellectual graveyard of orthodox and heterodox economics behind.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 For details see

Keynes’ intellectual nonexistence
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/12/keynes-intellectual-non-event.html

How Keynes got macro wrong and Allais got it right
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/09/how-keynes-got-macro-wrong-and-allais.html

Keynes’ Employment Function and the Gratuitous Phillips Curve Disaster
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2130421

Keynesians ― terminally stupid or worse?
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/08/keynesians-terminally-stupid-or-worse.html

#2 For details see

Who or what exactly did Keynes save?
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/11/who-or-what-exactly-did-keynes-save.html

Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump and exploding profit
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/12/keynes-lerner-mmt-trump-and-exploding.html

Fiscal policy and the Humpty Dumpty Fallacy
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/02/fiscal-policy-and-humpty-dumpty-fallacy.html

#3 Economics: communication without content
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/02/economics-communication-without-content.html

Kaivey said...

Would you have a minimum wage to stop poor people getting exploited, Egmont?

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Kalvey

Before one can tackle the minimum-wage issue one has to figure out the macroeconomic Employment Law. See

The minimum wage debate: a showpiece of economists’ hereditary idiocy
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/06/the-minimum-wage-debate-showpiece-of.html

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke