Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Bill Mitchell — The British Labour Fiscal Credibility rule – some further final comments

In this blog post, I want to clarify a few things about the rule that inform my previous assessments....
Important if you are a British voter, but also instructive concerning the MMT point of view on progressive policy.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The British Labour Fiscal Credibility rule – some further final comments
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

3 comments:

AXEC / E.K-H said...

MMT and the overall political corruption of economics
Comment on Bill Mitchell on ‘Progressive political leadership is absent but required’

Bill Mitchell writes: “One of the themes that has emerged in the discussions of the British Labour Party Fiscal Credibility Rule … is when is the right time for a political party to show leadership and start educating the public on new ideas. The Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) project has been, in part, about educating people even if our ideas have been strongly resisted by the mainstream. The mainstream (New Keynesian) paradigm in economics is degenerative … and eventually it will fade into historical obscurity.”

The general public finds nothing objectionable in this statement. Fact is that Bill Mitchell violates the first rule of science which says that science and politics are two spheres that have to be strictly kept apart. This is known since J. S. Mill: “A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser for practice. His part is only to show that certain consequences follow from certain causes, and that to obtain certain ends, certain means are the most effectual. Whether the ends themselves are such as ought to be pursued, and if so, in what cases and to how great a length, it is no part of his business as a cultivator of science to decide, and science alone will never qualify him for the decision.”#1

Economists violate the first rule of science since Adam Smith/Karl Marx. As a result, economists have to this day produced NOTHING of scientific value. Fact is that economists have messed up

• profit theory, for 200+ years,

• microfoundations, for 140+ years,

• macrofoundations, for 80+ years,

• the application of elementary logic and mathematics since the founding fathers.

Economists do not know to this day how the price- and profit-mechanism works. The four main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent.

Because of this, economic policy guidance has NO sound scientific foundation since the founding fathers. MMT is NO exception. MMT is proto-scientific garbage, the Post-Keynesian sectoral balances equation that underlies the whole analytical edifice is provably false.

Economists including MMTers have absolutely NO legitimacy to educate the general public or to lecture politicians.

Economists are scientifically incompetent and too stupid for the elementary mathematics that underlies macroeconomics. But nobody is too stupid for political agenda pushing. From history we know that every talented actor/actress can climb on a soapbox, tell any outlandish BS they want, as long as the narrative kicks off emotions, gets people into action or at least keeps them entertained.

Every moron can do political economics, but no moron can do science.

It has been proved that the foundational MMT balances equation is false. Now one knows from methodology, if the premises/axioms are false the whole analytical superstructure is false. MMT is scientifically worthless and by consequence, MMT policy guidance has NO sound scientific foundations at all. Yet, what has no scientific foundations is nothing but brain-dead political agenda pushing.#2

Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism are only diverse forms of political agenda pushing. The same holds for MMT. Economists have always been incompetent scientists and useful political idiots.

See part 2

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Part 2

MMT policy guidance boils down to deficit-spending/money-creation and is advertised as helping WeThePeople. The fraud of MMTers, who call themselves Progressives, consists of promising social benefits and hiding the fact that WeThePeople themselves pay in real terms for every single benefit either through open or stealth taxation and by hiding the fact that deficit-spending/money-creation feeds the Oligarchy.

Deficit-spending/money-creation is the final cause of the extremely skewed distribution of income and financial wealth. Needless to emphasize that Progressives condemn the unequal distribution between the ninety-nine-percenters and the one-percenters which is the direct result of MMT policy.#3

Bill Mitchell has NO legitimacy whatsoever to educate the general public or to lecture the elected representatives of British Labour or their Shadow Chancellor in economic or political matters.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 For details of the big picture see cross-references Political Economics/Stupidity/Corruption
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2015/11/political-economics-cross-references.html

#2 Very busy these days: Wall Street’s agents
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/10/very-busy-these-days-wall-streets-agents.html

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

Dean said...

"Fact is that Bill Mitchell violates the first rule of science which says that science and politics are two spheres that have to be strictly kept apart. "

" J. S. Mill: “A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser for practice. His part is only to show that certain consequences follow from certain causes, and that to obtain certain ends, certain means are the most effectual. Whether the ends themselves are such as ought to be pursued, and if so, in what cases and to how great a length, it is no part of his business as a cultivator of science to decide, and science alone will never qualify him for the decision."

What you and Mill are describing is the difference between a person who responds and a person who reacts. When a person responds they are being scientific...when a person reacts they are being political. There is not much else to life...

"Bill Mitchell has NO legitimacy whatsoever to educate the general public or to lecture the elected representatives of British Labour or their Shadow Chancellor in economic or political matters."

Who does?