The making of another interesting argument that is interesting from my perspective as involving the philosophy of science.
One thing that seldom gets mentioned in this argument, outside of Post Keynesian circles, is Paul Samuelson's MIT approach to economics in which he realized that to write the kind of formal models that he wanted, he needed to assume ergodicity. Paul Davidson criticized this assumption.
Noahpinion
Do economists have physics envy? (Part 2)
Noah Smith | Bloomberg View columnist
Noahpinion
Do economists have physics envy? (Part 2)
Noah Smith | Bloomberg View columnist
I'm in your cozy corner, Tom. Davidson's historical recounting of it is delicious, especially how Samuelson used his non-knowledge of Keynes' work to become a Keynes expert. Hilarious. The Appendix in Davidson's latest book details this. Samuelson was full of meow, too. Larry Summer's uncle.
ReplyDeleteDevin Leonard of The New York Times, wrote, "The most tantalizing part, however, is the appendix, entitled "Why Keynes's Ideas Were Never Taught in American Universities." I can't find it right now, but one of the comments was that the Appendix was worth the price of the book alone.
I used Calibre to turn my Kindle copy of the book to PDF. Then I isolated the Appendix. If you want to supply a copy here, Tom, email me. You can see mine. I'm traveling out of the country, but I'll see it within 24 hours.