Wednesday, May 5, 2021

RHETORICAL QUESTION: Why Do Economists Ignore þe Greatest of All Market Failures? — Brad DeLong

Why isn’t the unequal distribution of ex ante expected lifetime income—inequality of opportunity—conceptualized by us economists as the greatest of all market failures? And why isn’t the distribution of political power that creates & preserves a property order of unequal wealth seen as the greatest of all “regulatory capture by a special interest group” flaws in the working of society, economy, and the state?"….
Conventional economics is based on ignoring embedded asymmetric power relationships stemming from class structure. Anyone who has the temerity to bring it up in the academy is considered at least a closet Marxist, someone that doesn't understand power. Discussion of money and power is ruled out.

Grasping Reality
RHETORICAL QUESTION: Why Do Economists Ignore þe Greatest of All Market Failures?
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

3 comments:

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Economists’ periodically recurring crocodile tears about inequality
Comment on Brad DeLong on ‘RHETORICAL QUESTION: Why Do Economists Ignore the Greatest of All Market Failures?’

Distribution is the greatest of all theory failures.

Economics is failed/fake science for 200+ years. Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and all got profit wrong. Because the foundational economic concept of profit is false the whole analytical superstructure is false. Economics is scientifically worthless.

Deficit-spending/money-creation is the cause of the extreme inequality of income and wealth. The 3-sector Profit Law Q≡(G−T)+(I−S)+Yd implies Public Deficit = Private Profit. Private financial wealth of the Oligarchy grows in lockstep with the public debt of WeThePeople. Public debt, in turn, is the interest cash cow that produces perpetual income which is taxed by the IRS from WeThePeople on behalf of the Oligarchy.

The Oligarchy, in turn, uses the opulent free lunches to corrupt what remains of the state’s legislative, executive, judiciary institutions. Ultimately, it is scientifically incompetent economists who work ― intentionally or unintentionally does NOT matter ― for the growing inequality of income/wealth. Only stupid/corrupt economists rhetorically wonder about the inequality of income/wealth.#1-#3

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Dear idiots, it is deficit spending that creates the distribution people complain about
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/04/dear-idiots-it-is-deficit-spending-that.html

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

#3 First Fundamental Law vs. Fundamental Theorem of Income Distribution
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2014/12/first-fundamental-law-vs-fundamental.html

Ralph Musgrave said...

The failure to reduce income and wealth inequalities to an extent that many regard as socially desirable is not an example of market failure. Market failure is (roughly speaking) failure to maximise GDP. That's not to belittle Brad DeLong's desire for more equality: it's just that failure to achieve that is not strictly speaking "market failure".

Peter Pan said...

Policy failure.