The first thing that should be noted is that while Duncan is indubitably one of the leading living theorists of Marxist economics, he does not consider himself to be a "Marxist," but rather a student of Marx, if a deeply sympathetic one. This is a sensitive matter as he was turned down for tenure at Stanford largely because he was accused of being a "Marxist economist" when he started publishing papers and books on Marxist economics. He has always sais that his true ideology is his religion, Quakerism, the Friends, with him agreeing with their pacifism, which is not an idea inherent in Marxism, indeed, with many Marxists supporting violent revolution. Nevertheless, there is probably no living economist who is clearly more important as a deep analyst of Mars's economics, with some of his closest rivals in attendance at this latest conference, such as Anwar Shaikh.
How he got into Marxist economics followed on from his earlier work on general equilibrium theory, which was what got him hired at Stanford in the first place (and he still writes on GET). Indeed, he had been hired at MIT from Yale to teach general equilibrium theory to grad students a la Arrow-Debreu-McKenzie, as this was not Paul Samuelson's cup of tea. The motive for moving to Marx was the problem posed by fitting money into general equilibrium theory, which is generally done in a purely barter form. This is also a cover for the problem of how to link micro to macro. He was especially intrigued by Marx's writings on money in the Grundrisse and in Vol. III of Capital, which became the basis for his later interpretations and studies of this....Econospeak
Duncan Foley On Socialist Alternatives to Capitalism
J. Barkley Rosser | Professor of Economics and Business Administration James Madison University
BALTIMORE—Challenging decades of mainstream academic thought, a group of Johns Hopkins University researchers released a report Tuesday indicating that the late Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin was only one great purge away from creating a communist utopia. “Our research demonstrates that if Stalin had shipped a mere 100,000 more people to Siberia, the whole communist experiment would have worked out perfectly,” said historian and report co-author Franklin Morrison, adding that all of the USSR’s corruption, hunger, and disease would have disappeared overnight if Stalin had simply been able to let a few million more Ukrainians starve to death. “It’s a shame, because in 1953 the Soviet Union was really on the precipice of becoming a perpetual workers’ paradise devoid of all poverty and want. Unfortunately, Stalin passed away before he could round up just one last group of intellectuals and make them dig their own mass graves.” Morrison also noted that Stalin likely came closer to creating a communist utopia than any other leader in world history besides China’s Mao Tse-tung, who actually achieved it.
ReplyDeletehttps://tinyurl.com/y8uwsleu
So anyone who doesn't worship scarce, shiny metals is a Commie, Bob?
ReplyDeleteI suggest you read the Bible and learn otherwise, seriously.
Note on Barkley Rosser — Duncan Foley On Socialist Alternatives to Capitalism
ReplyDeleteMarx never came to grips with profit and After-Marxians did not spot and rectify his blunders in the last 130+ years. See
Profit: after 200+ years still elusive
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/04/profit-after-200-years-still-elusive.html
Karl Marx, fake scientist
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/08/karl-marx-fake-scientist.html
Ricardo and the invention of class war
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/02/ricardo-and-invention-of-class-war.html
Capitalism, poverty, exploitation, and cross-over exploitation
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/04/capitalism-poverty-exploitation-and.html
DSGE and profit―forget it! MMT and profit―forget it!
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/03/dsge-and-profit-forget-it-mmt-and.html
Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump and exploding profit
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/12/keynes-lerner-mmt-trump-and-exploding.html
Economics is a lost field. Because the foundational concept profit is false the whole analytical superstructure is false: Walrasianism, DSGE, Keynesianism, Post Keynesianism, MMT, Marxianism, Austrianism are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent. Duncan Foley, as well as Barkley Rosser, ultimately leaves us hanging on what is the most promising alternative to failed economics.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
1. We know for certain that Egmont Kakarot-Handtke understands nothing about Austrian concepts or analysis.
ReplyDeletehttp://axecorg.blogspot.com/search?q=Austrian
2. Andrew Anderson is free to use dead fish heads as money or live in a non-contiguous private property Keynesian community for all that libertarianism cares about how he wants to live.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNo Bob, the problem is you want to FORCE EVERY US TAXPAYER to use needlessly expensive fiat. Hypocrite!
ReplyDeleteAs for me, I'd love it if you could use gold and silver for private debts only but with no advantage over other potential private money forms such as common stock.
Then dummies would learn the advantage of live assets vs cold, dead precious metals.
Profit and the Private-Property-Irrelevance Theorem
ReplyDeleteComment on Barkley Rosser on ‘Duncan Foley On Socialist Alternatives to Capitalism’
When proven to be a fake scientist without any understanding of the foundational economic concept of profit, Barkley Rosser answers: “But then, after all these denunciations, when we finally come to the grand presentation of his one and only true theory of profit, it turns out to be, as I said above, a minor accounting variation on Keynesian income and product accounts, a variation well known and long accounted for by the relevant economists who have a need to deal with this minor variation (all about retained earnings! the ultimate meaning of all economics!). It is a giant nothingburger involving no paradigm shift or anything at all of any serious interest to anybody.”
The surrealism of the matter is that the economist Barkley Rosser comments on Capitalism and Socialism and has no idea about what profit is. Fact is that he spent is academic life with behavioral economics which is not more than a mix of sociology/psychology/anthropology for cargo cult scientists. Barkley Rosser never understood that economics is NOT a social science but a system science.
Here are the facts. Economics is a scientific failure.#1 What first of all has to be done is the paradigm shift from microfoundations to macrofoundations.#2 From the correct axiomatic foundations then follows the macroeconomic Profit Law with increasing complexity:#3
Qm=−Sm in the elementary production-consumption economy,
Qm=I−Sm in the elementary investment economy (note I is NEVER equal Sm),
Qm=(G−T)+I−Sm in the investment economy with government deficit/surplus,
Qm=Yd+(X−M)+(G−T)+I−Sm in the open economy with distributed profit.
Legend: Qm monetary profit/loss, Sm monetary saving/dissaving, I investment expenditures, G government spending, T taxes, X export, M import, Yd distributed profit.
Written as sectoral balances this gives (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−Sm)−(Qm−Yd)=0. The axiomatically correct sectoral balances equation compares to the false equation (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−Sm)=0 which goes back to Keynes and constitutes to this day the explicit formal foundation of Post-Keynesianism and MMT.#4
The Profit Law says in the most elementary version that profit for the economy as a whole is equal to dissaving, that is, it has NOTHING at all to do with exploitation, greed, constrained optimization or any other psycho-social factors.#5 The comprehensive Profit Law consists exclusively of measurable variables, therefore, macroeconomic profit can be objectively determined with the accuracy of two decimal places.
The Profit Law holds for the monetary economy, no matter on which historical stage the economy actually is, and it is independent of the given legal order, in particular absolutely independent of the definition of property rights. In other words, the Profit Law holds for capitalist USA, communist Soviet Union, socialist/mixed Russia, and state/social China.
Because economists NEVER understood profit and have NEVER figured out the correct macroeconomic Profit Law, society is plagued since 200+ years with a brain-dead political discussion about Capitalism and Socialism and an economic policy guidance that has NO sound scientific foundation.
For the welfare of society, failed/fake economists are worse than the Four Horsemen.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Economics: 200+ years of scientific incompetence and fraud
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/06/economics-200-years-of-scientific.html
#2 True macrofoundations: the reset of economics
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/05/true-macrofoundations-reset-of-economics.html
#3 Rethinking the Profit Law
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/12/rethinking-profit-law.html
#4 Rectification of MMT macro accounting
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/09/rectification-of-mmt-macro-accounting.html
#5 Capitalism, poverty, exploitation, and cross-over exploitation
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/04/capitalism-poverty-exploitation-and.html
Barkley Rosser
ReplyDeleteBarkley Rosser is in great danger to lose his last two brain cells: “So. Thornton, Egmont has done you a favor and laid it all out, completely verifying everything I said. His system is a minor accounting variation on the basic Keynesian national income and accounting system, with only accounting for Yd, distributed profit, as the difference.”
The axiomatically based macroeconomic Profit Law is NOT a variation of the Keynesian income and accounting system but the REFUTATION of the formal foundation of Keynesianism. Because the formal foundations are false the whole analytical superstructure of Keynesianism is false.
For details see:
How Keynes got macro wrong and Allais got it right
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/09/how-keynes-got-macro-wrong-and-allais.html
Keynes’ Missing Axioms
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1841408
The Common Error of Common Sense: An Essential Rectification of the Accounting Approach
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2124415
Why Post Keynesianism Is Not Yet a Science
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1966438
For the full-spectrum refutation of Keynesianism/Post-Keynesianism/MMT see cross-references Keynesianism
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/09/keynesianism-cross-references.html
Keynes did NOT get profit right and every economist with more than two brain cells knows this: “His Collected Writings show that he wrestled to solve the Profit Puzzle up till the semi-final versions of his GT but in the end he gave up and discarded the draft chapter dealing with it.” (Tómasson et al.)
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
Barkley Rosser
ReplyDeleteI have rated your scientific competence already with zero but now things are getting even worse.
It should NOT be too difficult even for a dim-witted economist to see the difference between the two balances equations:
(i) (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−S)−(Q−Yd)=0, AXEC=axiomatically true,
(ii) (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−S)=0, Post-Keynesianism/MMT=false.
When simplified to the bare bones, i.e. X, M, G, T, Yd all 0, then we have:
(iii) Q=I−S macroeconomic profit is given as the difference between investment and saving,
(iv) I=S saving equals investment.
Eq. (iv) is the Keynesian Ur-blunder: “Income = value of output = consumption + investment. Saving = income − consumption. Therefore saving = investment.” (GT, p. 63)
The comparison of (iii) and (iv) tells everybody that Keynes dealt with a zero profit economy. Because a zero profit economy is a NONENTITY the whole of the GT is proto-scientific garbage. Keynes, of course, never realized this, and neither did his dull followers up to the present, and neither did Barkley Rosser.
Conclusion: The formal foundations of macro are false since Keynes. All I=S/IS-LM models from Keynes/Hicks to Krugman#2 and all multiplier models#3 of the last 80 years are provably false.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Getting out of IS-LM = Getting out of despair
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/06/getting-out-of-is-lm-getting-out-of.html
#2 Mr. Keynes, Prof. Krugman, IS-LM, and the End of Economics as We Know It
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2392856
#3 Advancing to the correct multiplier
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/08/advancing-to-correct-multiplier.html
Barkley Rosser, Sandwichman
ReplyDeleteThe complete macroeconomic Profit Law is given with
Q=Qm+Qn=Yd+I−Sm+(X−M)+(G−T)+Qn.
All variables are measurable with the accuracy of two decimal places. So, the axiomatically#1 correct Profit Law is a testable proposition.
A scientist would first of all check whether the equation is logically and empirically true. The discussion about Capitalism and Socialism is absolutely senseless as long as the pivotal economic magnitude profit is not consistently defined and fully understood.
You, of course, are no scientists with the goal to figure out how the economy works but political agenda pushers who instead are preoccupied with the question of how best to suppress the unassailable proofs of your multidimensional incompetence.
The capitalist economy will break down for the same reason as the socialist economy, that is, because the Profit Law holds for ALL monetary economies independently of the definition of private/public property.#2
Marx got profit and exploitation and classes wrong.#3 His 200th birthday is the right date to bury him for good at the Cemetery for Failed/Fake Scientists.#4
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 The true macrofoundations which fully replace the false Walrasian microfoundations and the false Keynesian macrofoundations are shown on Wikimedia
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AXEC137.png
#2 Mathematical Proof of the Breakdown of Capitalism
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2375578
#3 Profit for Marxists
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2414301
#4 Why is economics a total scientific failure?
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/05/why-is-economics-total-scientific.html
"The Profit Law says in the most elementary version that profit for the economy as a whole is equal to dissaving, that is, it has NOTHING at all to do with exploitation, greed, constrained optimization or any other psycho-social factors."
ReplyDeleteAgreed. As the Bank of England also demonstrated clearly in 2014, (i) most financial assets are claims are against other financial assets, and (ii) If everyone in the economy were to pool all of their assets and debts together as one, all of the financial assets and liabilities — including money — would cancel out, leaving only the non-financial assets.
This clearly demonstrates that profits are the result of extended credit and thus indebtedness, and not the result of increased productivity or surplus physical goods etc. This should be obvious if we imagine the business sector as a whole cuts its production down by half, this would not stop them generating a profit – all that is required is that people spend more than they receive in wages. We can even go as far down as the business sector as a whole produces only one item. All it has to do is charge more for this one item than it paid out in wages to produce it, and it will profit; in order for that particular worker to purchase the item, it would need to borrow or receive additional income from government over and above what it received in wages.
This is the pure fact regarding profit – it has no ‘real’ counterpart, it has no ‘present’ existence, it is nothing but a legally endorsed power to exercise control over the future actions of those who incur the necessary debt or deficits which enable the profit to come into existence. If the Bank of England is making this point clear, then it is quite shocking that this whole issue is still debated.