Remember back just a few months ago. We are in Britain. All the Remainers are jumping up and down about Brexit. We hardly see anything about it now as the UK moves towards a no deal with the EU. Times have overtaken all that non-event stuff. Now the developments are confounding the mainstream economists – again. There will be all sorts of reinventing history and ad hoc reasoning going on, but the latest data demonstrates quite clearly that what students are taught in mainstream macroeconomics provides no basis for an understanding of how the monetary system operates. All the predictions that a mainstream program would generate about the likely effects of current treasury and central bank behaviour would be wrong. Only MMT provides the body of knowledge that is requisite for understanding these trends....Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Britain confounding the macroeconomic textbooks – except one!
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
"In his great 1972 book – Theories of poverty and underemployment, Lexington, Mass: Heath, Lexington Books), David M. Gordon wrote about how the mainstream deal with cognitive dissonance. Think denial.
ReplyDeleteHis context was mainstream human capital theory, which at the time had been exposed as being deeply at odds with the facts about earnings distributions and other crucial labour market characteristics it sought to explain.
David Gordon said that mainstream economists continually responded to empirical anomalies with ad hoc or palliative responses.
So whenever the mainstream paradigm is confronted with empirical evidence that appears to refute its basic predictions it creates an exception by way of response to the anomaly and continues on as if nothing had happened."
This is a joke? Is this a joke? This has to be a joke...
Where is the word 'empirical' used here:
"Dialectic or dialectics (Greek: διαλεκτική, dialektikḗ; related to dialogue), also known as the dialectical method, is at base a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned arguments. Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and the modern pejorative sense of rhetoric.[1][2] Dialectic may thus be contrasted with both the eristic, which refers to argument that aims to successfully dispute another's argument (rather than searching for truth), or the didactic method, wherein one side of the conversation teaches the other. Dialectic is alternatively known as minor logic, as opposed to major logic or critique."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic
Empirical evidence HAS NO PLACE HERE...
Bill is trying to pull a fast on by switching methodologies...
WHAT METHOD or WAY are you using????
Figure that out FIRST... its foundational to the Discipline...
Bill is trying to use the Dialectic Method and then when he gets to a dead end with the other thesis he is trying to THEN employ Science or Empiricism ...
DOESNT WORK THAT WAY BILLY! ... sorry man..
Says right here: "wishing to establish the truth through reasoned arguments"
Reason ALONE Bill.... reason alone...
Dont be trying to reason then all of a sudden when those with the differing Thesis wont agree with you all of a sudden youre going to try to shift over to Science or Empiricsim...
DOESNT WORK THAT WAY... SORRY...
You want to play with the Reasoners then youre stuck playing with the Reasoners...
Cant change the methodology right in the middle of the argument... sorry...
"So whenever the mainstream paradigm is confronted with empirical evidence that appears to refute its basic predictions it creates an exception by way of response to the anomaly and continues on as if nothing had happened."
ReplyDeleteThis is perfectly normal what is the problem here?
Neither side is using Science so why is this supposed to be surprising?
"oh! the other side is not just caving in !.... hmmmm gee what can I do now?? ... oh! I know!... Ill just bring some Science in then! yeah that is the ticket!"
ReplyDeleteDoesnt f-ing work that way...
And btw writing a book titled "The Human Capital Myth" isnt going to help either...
ReplyDeleteThe wealthy deserve everything ~ the poor deserve nothing.
ReplyDeleteEconomic dialectic.
No that would be one Thesis in a Dialectic process....
ReplyDeleteAn antithesis would then be “the poor deserve subsidy”
Then the two parties would dialogue back and forth with reasoned arguments...
No empirical data is allowed to be used by either of the parties... that would be Science which is not how they are operating...
Wealthy, poor, everything, nothing - check.
ReplyDeleteTwo parties - check.
Continual dialogue back and forth - check.
The wealthy deserve nothing ~ the poor deserve everything.
Crickets.
Hey dont look at me Im more or less at war with that methodology...
ReplyDeleteI'm just aware of its existence... I certainly dont support it...
Okay :)
ReplyDeleteDialectics, diuretics - avoid both when possible.
And never assume a debate is a form of intellectual discourse.