AXEC: New Foundations of Economics: #DrainTheScientificSwamp

December 27, 2018

#DrainTheScientificSwamp

Links on Nick Rowe’s ‘Explaining S=I: Inventories vs Adding up Individuals’ on Dec 18

Blog-Reference

Macroeconomics is one of the most embarrassing failures in the history of modern science. The fact is that economists do NOT understand to this day that I=S is provably false since Keynes.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

Related 'Flawed logic' and 'Mr. Keynes, Prof. Krugman, IS-LM, and the End of Economics as We Know It'.

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REPLY to Roger Sparks on Dec 27

I is NEVER equal to S. Therefore, it is a futile exercise to ‘explain’ I=S with some silly examples.

Here is the proof.

The elementary production-consumption economy is given with three macroeconomic axioms: (A1) Yw=WL wage income Yw is equal to wage rate W times working hours. L, (A2) O=RL output O is equal to productivity R times working hours L, (A3) C=PX consumption expenditures C is equal to price P times quantity bought/sold X.

In the elementary production-consumption economy, three configurations are logically possible: (i) consumption expenditures are equal to wage income C=Yw, (ii) C is less than Yw, (iii) C is greater than Yw.

In case (i) the monetary saving of the household sector Sm≡Yw−C is zero and the monetary profit of the business sector Qm≡C−Yw, too, is zero. The product market is cleared, i.e. X=O in all three cases. Accordingly, the market-clearing price as the dependent variable is given by P=C/X=W/R.
In case (ii) monetary saving Sm is positive and the business sector makes a loss, i.e. Qm is negative. The market-clearing price P is less than W/R.
In case (iii) monetary saving Sm is negative, i.e. the household sector dissaves, and the business sector makes a profit, i.e. Qm is positive.

It always holds Qm≡−Sm, in other words, the business sector’s profit is equal to the household sector’s dissaving, and the business sector’s loss is equal to the household sector’s saving. In still other words, saving is NOT equal to investment because there is NO investment in the elementary production-consumption economy.

Under the condition that the price remains constant, the market does not clear if saving is greater than zero, i.e. O−X>0 if Sm>0, i.e. the business sector’s inventory increases. The valuation of the inventory is NOT predetermined. For example, if it is valued with zero, then inventory investment is zero and I is NOT equal to Sm. If it is valued higher, then inventory investment is positive but still unequal to Sm.#1

Keynes started macroeconomics with false premises and ended with false conclusions: “Income = value of output = consumption + investment. Saving = income − consumption. Therefore saving = investment.” (GT, p. 63)

Keynes’ premise income = value of output is false. From the correct macroeconomic axioms follows:
(1) Qm≡−Sm in the elementary production-consumption economy,
(2) Qm≡I−Sm in the elementary investment economy,
(3) Qm≡Yd+I−Sm in the investment economy with profit distribution,
(4) Qm≡Yd+I−Sm+(G−T)+(X−M) in the general case with government in an open economy.

Simple algebra tells everyone that saving is NEVER equal to investment. Both orthodox and heterodox economists are too stupid for the elementary mathematics that underlies macroeconomic accounting.#2

#1 Primary and Secondary Markets
#2 For more details see cross-references Refutation of I=S

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REPLY to Roger Sparks on Dec 29

Nick Rowe writes: “It’s easy to teach students the arithmetic showing that actual saving must equal actual investment (S=I).” and “S=I is an accounting identity, and accounting identities are true by definition.”

Fact is that “S=I is an accounting identity, and accounting identities are true by definition.” is one of the most stupid statements in the history of the failed/fake science of economics.#1, #2, #3 And the fact that all student generations since Keynes parrot this manifest arithmetic garbage is a metric of the desperately low IQ of economics students.

Take notice that the correct accounting identity for the elementary investment economy reads Qm≡I−Sm, that is, monetary profit Qm is the difference of investment expenditures of the business sector I and monetary saving of the household sector Sm.

Saving has never been nor will ever be equal to investment. So, ‘explaining’ I=S is not easy, just the opposite, it is impossible.

The fact that economists still claim ― 80+ years after Keynes committed the lethal blunder ― that I equals S is due to their utter scientific incompetence. This thread is the very proof that Nick Rowe and Roger Sparks and the rest (except Jamie, who got it: “This makes me want to scream in frustration”) are too stupid for the elementary mathematics that underlies macroeconomic accounting.#4, #5

#1 Wikipedia and the promotion of economists’ idiotism
#2 MMT and the single most stupid physicist
#3 Truth by definition? The Profit Theory is axiomatically false for 200+ years
#4 A crash course in macro accounting
#5 For details see cross-references Accounting

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REPLY to Nick Rowe on Jan 1

You write: “Here’s the arithmetic of S=I: Define Y as market value of newly-produced final goods (and services). In a closed economy … we divide Y into consumption goods C and investment goods I, so Y=C+I. And we define saving S as S=Y−C. Substitute the first equation into the second to get S=Y−C=C+I−C=I, so S=I.”

This is Keynes’ argument of GT p. 63. It is false because Keynes got macroeconomic profit wrong: “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.)

Let this sink in: the economist Keynes NEVER understood the foundational concept of his subject matter. And After-Keynesians NEVER spotted Keynes’ blunder.

In order to get the “arithmetic” right, one has to go back to the most elementary macroeconomic configuration, that is, the elementary production-consumption economy which consists of the household and the business sector.

In this elementary economy, three configurations are logically possible: (i) consumption expenditures are equal to wage income C=Yw, (ii) C is less than Yw, (iii) C is greater than Yw.

In case (i) the monetary saving of the household sector S≡Yw−C is zero and the monetary profit of the business sector Q≡C−Yw, too, is zero. The product market is cleared, i.e. X=O, i.e. there is NO change of inventory.
In case (ii) monetary saving S is positive and the business sector makes a loss, i.e. Q is negative.
In case (iii) monetary saving S is negative, i.e. the household sector dissaves, and the business sector makes a profit, i.e. Q is positive.

It always holds Q≡−S, in other words, at the heart of the monetary economy is an identity: the business sector’s surplus (deficit) equals the household sector’s deficit (surplus). In other words, profit is the counterpart of dissaving and loss is the counterpart of saving. This is the most elementary form of the macroeconomic Profit Law.

For the elementary investment economy the Profit Law reads Q≡I−S. As everyone can see, there is NO such thing as an accounting identity I=S or an equilibrium of saving and investment.

For 80+ years, I=S is a monument of economists’ mathematical incompetence, and “S=I is an accounting identity, and accounting identities are true by definition.” will forever stand out as one of the most idiotic statements in the history of so-called economic thought.

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REPLY to Roger Sparks on Jan 1

You say: “You can see that business would control the pricing of the products consumed but households would control whether consumption (the second exchange) would occur and when.”

What I indeed see is that you are one of those undereducated blatherers who overpopulate economics. The point at issue is the macroeconomic “arithmetic” and not human behavior/control. More specifically, the point at issue is the refutation of the brain-dead assertion: “S=I is an accounting identity, and accounting identities are true by definition.”

The point at issue is that I=S is mathematically false and by NO means “true by definition” and that economists are too stupid for macroeconomic accounting#1 and that they, after 200+ years, still do not understand what profit is.

Make no mistake, I=S is not only disqualifying for you and Nick Rowe but for the entire profession.#2

In the elementary production-consumption economy, the price is under the condition of market clearing, i.e. X=O, and budget balancing, i.e. C=Yw, the dependent variable, i.e. P=W/R. If the condition of market-clearing is dropped and the firm sets the price then the market is NOT cleared and the change of inventory is given by O−X.

All these cases have been dealt with elsewhere#3 and they are NOT relevant for the point at issue. So, they can be left out for the moment. Again, the point is that investment is NEVER equal to saving and that Nick Rowe’s attempt to explain I=S is 200+ light years beside the point, as usual.#4

This is the state of economics: Walrasian microfoundations are false and Keynesian macrofoundations are false. There is NO economics that satisfies the criteria of science, only senseless blather.

#1 The Common Error of Common Sense: An Essential Rectification of the Accounting Approach
#2 Mr. Keynes, Prof. Krugman, IS-LM, and the End of Economics as We Know It
#3 Primary and Secondary Markets
#4 Cryptoeconomics ― the best of Nick Rowe’s spam folder

Knowledge only — no opinion

Science does not explain everything, but non-science explains nothing.

Neither orthodox nor heterodox economics satisfies the scientific criteria of material and formal consistency.

Economists cannot explain how the economy works. The Profit Theory is false since Adam Smith. There is much opinion and little knowledge.

Opinion is the realm of political economics, knowledge is the realm of theoretical economics.

Political economics is scientifically worthless.

Theoretical economics is built upon clearly stated premises, i.e., upon a set of axioms.

Orthodoxy got the axiomatic foundations wrong and Heterodoxy has none at all.

Economics is a failed science. Economists are incompetent scientists.

Profit

Neither Classicals, nor Walrasians, nor Marshallians, nor Marxians, nor Keynesians, nor Institutionialists, nor Monetary Economists, nor MMTers, nor Austrians, nor Sraffaians, nor Evolutionists, nor Game theorists, nor EconoPhysicists, nor RBCers, nor New Keynesians, nor New Classicals ever came to grips with profit. Hence, they all fail to capture the essence of the market economy.

Because of this, economists have nothing to offer in the way of a scientifically founded economic policy guidance.

The hybrid science

As a first approximation, one can agree on the general characteristic that the economy is a complex system.

However, with the term system one usually associates a structure with components that are non-human. In order to stress the obvious fact that humans are an essential component of the economic system the market economy should be characterized more precisely as a complex hybrid human/system entity.

The scientific method is straightforwardly applicable to the sys-component but not to the hum-component. While it is clear that the economy always has to be treated as an indivisible whole, for good methodological reasons the analysis has to start with the objective system-component.

In gestalt-psychological terms the economic system is the foreground, individual behavior the background. Common sense wrongly insists that the hum-component must always be in the foreground. This fallacy compares to geo-centrism. The economic system has its own logic which is different from the behavioral logic of humans. The systemic logic is what Adam Smith called the Invisible Hand.

There are systemic laws but no behavioral laws. Systemic laws have the same methodological status as physical laws.

Neither Orthodoxy nor Heterodoxy can tell what the systemic laws of the actual monetary economy are.

Whether the outcome of the human/system-interaction is good or bad is a politcal question that lies outside of theoretical economics. Theoretical economics explains how the actual economy works - no less, no more.

Narrative vs.Theory

Psychological, sociological or behavioral assumptionism cannot yield anything other than a gossip model of the world. Second-guessing the agents is not economic analysis.

Science deals exclusively with propositions that can in principle be decided by objective means. The rest is opinion, faith, phantasy, motive speculation, allegation, hallucination, myth, paranoia, ink-blot association, psychology, philosophy, in one word: storytelling.

Storytelling is the original mode of communication in the social realm — except science.

Political economics is storytelling and, by default, the natural habitat of confused confusers. Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism are social narratives and not scientifically valid representations of reality.

"The truth is, most persons, not excepting professional economists, are satisfied with very hazy notions." (Fisher)

In marked contrast, theoretical economics lives up to the standards of material and formal consistency. A scientific theory is the best mental representation of reality that is humanly possible.

Theory starts with a set of objective and consistent axioms.

Paradigm Shift

"The problem is not just to say that something might be wrong, but to replace it by something — and that is not so easy." (Feynman)

"As will become evident, there is more agreement on the defects of orthodox theory than there is on what theory is to replace it: but all agreed that the point of the criticism is to clear the ground for construction." (Nell)

"The moral of the story is simply this: it takes a new theory, and not just the destructive exposure of assumptions or the collection of new facts, to beat an old theory." (Blaug)

"Is it not a fact, which stares at us from the histories of all sciences, that it is much more difficult for the human mind to forge the most elementary conceptual schemes than it is to elaborate the most complicated superstructure when those elements are well in hand?" (Schumpeter)

"The task of producing knowledge against the grain requires imagination." (Mirowski)

"A new idea is extremely difficult to think of. It takes a fantastic imagination." (Feynman)

"The scientific imagination dreams of explanations and laws." (Peirce)

"It is brilliance of imagination which makes the glory of science." (Evans)

"... we know little more now about ‘how the economy works,’ ... than we knew in 1790, after Adam Smith completed the last revision of The Wealth of Nations." (Clower)

Selftest and to watch for

You apply one of these items

• supply-demand-equilibrium,

• general equilibrium,

• marginal utility,

• well-behaved production functions,

• total income = value of output,

• total income = wages + profits,

• I=S,

• wage rate down - employment up,

• behavioral axioms?

Then you are out of science because of unnoticed material or formal inconsistency.

Every economist who uses the concept of equilibrium is scientifically incompetent because she/he failed to notice that equilibrium is an economic nonentity.

Practically this means: as soon as the word equilibrium appears in an economic text it can be thrown into the waste basket. The same holds for all other nonentities.

The vast majority of economists deals mainly with nonentities. This is why Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism is scientifically worthless.

Since Adam Smith, economic policy guidance has no sound scientific foundations.

To be replaced (1)

The core premises of Orthodoxy are uncertain and false and this fully explains the failure of the research program.

“As with any Lakatosian research program, the neo-Walrasian program is characterized by its hard core, heuristics, and protective belts. Without asserting that the following characterization is definitive, I have argued that the program is organized around the following propositions: HC1 economic agents have preferences over outcomes; HC2 agents individually optimize subject to constraints; HC3 agent choice is manifest in interrelated markets; HC4 agents have full relevant knowledge; HC5 observable outcomes are coordinated, and must be discussed with reference to equilibrium states.” (Weintraub)

The inescapable Paradigm Shift consists of the move from this obsolete hard core to the superior set of structural axioms.

To be replaced (2)

The fundamental equations of macroeconomics have been formulated by Keynes in two lines.

"Income = value of output = consumption + investment. Saving = income - consumption. Therefore saving = investment."

This elementary syllogism is demonstrably false. The demonstration consists in the proof that Keynes could not solve the Profit Puzzle. Neither did Post-Neo-New-Keynesians.

In the most general terms, the economics Paradigm Shift consists in switching from the behavior-centric bottom-up approach to the structure-centric top-down approach. This is comparable to the Copernican turn from geo-centrism to helio-centrism.

Consensus

Economics is a science without scientists. Because they are ignorant of the elementary difference between profit and income, the present generation of economists has not made and cannot make a significant contribution to the discussion about how the actual economy works.

Every orthodox or heterodox economist can convince himself/herself that their profit theory is defective.

Every non-economist can — by applying elementary logic — convince himself that conventional profit theories are false. See 'How the intelligent non-economist can refute every economist hands down'.

Because the profit theory is false the whole of conventional economic theory has to be rejected.

"What is now taught as standard economic theory will eventually disappear, no trace of it will remain in the universities or boardrooms because it simply doesn’t work: were it engineering, the bridge would collapse." (McCauley)

No scientist will ever accept Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, or Austrianism. These approaches are logically and/or empirically refuted. This is the actual methodological state-of-art. Walrasians, Keynesians, Marxians, or Austrians are still at the proto-scientific stage. These approaches cannot be improved, only abandoned.

Economists are a public nuisance because they have an opinion on everything but knowledge of nothing.

About me

“Bottom line is that your profit law is just a definition you made up nobody else agrees with, nobody. You are all alone with your precious tautology.” Barkley Rosser

“In any event, your entire theory is based on you doing macro accounting in wacky fashion that nobody agrees with.” Brian Romanchuk

"Your stuff is at least original: it's quite cool after a couple of decades at this to see a fresh Economics. But real promises are not advanced: they were around for millennia until the Greeks obscured them with Metaphysics." Chris Cook

"No mate, they're you-blockers. You have all the personality traits of a crank, and the rest of them have tired of you. You could be 100% right, and you'd still die as your only follower." Steve Keen

"What you are doing fills is all with joy, your constructive critique is most welcome!"

Achim Truger,

German Council of Economic Experts,

in a failed attempt to be ironic

"200+ years of thought and yet you are the only one who gets it—or even understands your argument. Thank god we have you, pseudonymous Twitter user. Otherwise no one would know."

William Luther

Assistant Professor of Economics

in a failed attempt to be funny

"Egmonts profit law is the perfect equation that demonstrates this in action. Put the equation into a spreadsheet and then add government spending and watch how it flows into profits. Enter in some debt (-Sm) and watch too how that flows into profits. It can't go anywhere else."

Dean

About the rest of economics

Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, Pluralism are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/ formally inconsistent. Economics is a failed science.

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” Leonardo da Vinci

In economics, the overwhelming majority belongs to Class III. This explains why economics is after 200+ years still at the proto-scientific level.

The obvious task for every economist is to advance from cargo cult science and political agenda-pushing to science. This is absolutely beyond the means of Class III people.

For 200+ years now, economists are not scientists but agenda pushers, useful idiots, clowns in the political Circus Maximus.

Nopopop

This blog does not add to any popular/un- popular opinion.

This blog does not hand out advice about how to avoid taxes, to get rich on the stock market, to be successful in business, to increase the wealth of nations, to run an economy, to maximize welfare, to prevent national/global bankruptcy, to improve the institutional setup of society, to get out of national/global depression, nor about how to save humankind or any subgroup thereof.

This blog is about the true theory of the actual monetary economy.

"In order to tell the politicians and practitioners something about causes and best means, the economist needs the true theory or else he has not much more to offer than educated common sense or his personal opinion." (Stigum)

Focus

Science is of primary interest and importance. Scientists are of secondary interest.

With regard to science, most people lose focus easily because of a natural preference for anecdotes and gossip over facts or subjectivity over objectivity.

Hence, Schumpeter once considered it necessary to remind his habitually disoriented fellow economists: “Remember: occasionally, it may be an interesting question to ask why a man says what he says; but whatever the answer, it does not tell us anything about whether what he says is true or false.”

Science is about true/false and nothing else.

Disclaimer

Missing Blog-Reference links: AXEC does not guarantee that their comments can at any time be recovered from where they have been posted intitially because the availability depends on the publication policy of the blog owner which is implicitly accepted on entering a debate. See also: 'Economists: Incompetent? Stupid? Corrupt?'

Texts: Parts of arbitrary length of any of the author's texts is and will be used again by the author in papers, books, websites, blogs, and other media without explicit reference. The right to make corrections or minor textual improvements on reutilization is reserved. Therefore, it is always a good idea to double-check for the latest version.

Caution: Do not expect a corroboration of your political view. Neither a refutation. Political economics has been scientifically worthless since Adam Smith. Politics has to be separated from economics because it is categorically different from science. The best science can do and has always done is to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you have been objectively wrong or ignorant until now. Science goes beyond the naive common sense of today and becomes the sophisticated common sense of tomorrow.

See also Terms of Use and Legal at www.AXEC.org

Outlook

To recall, while political economics is storytelling, theoretical economics adheres to scientific standards.

The first task of theoretical economics is to get the axiomatic foundations right. This is what J. S. Mill called the opus magnum. Neither Orthodoxy nor Heterodoxy came up with a reasonable solution to this day. This explains the secular stagnation of economics.

There is no serious alternative to structural axiomatic economics. This is not a matter of opinion but of proof. The sole criteria are material and formal consistency.

All of economics has to be reconstructed from the ground up.

Major economic policy implication

The price mechanism does not work as standard economics hypothesizes. The axiom-based Employment Law states that overall employment increases if the average wage rate increases relative to average price and productivity. This gives one the lever to improve the employment situation all over the world and to fend off deflation without rising debt and without artificial capacity growth. To increase the average price relative to the average wage rate and productivity increases unemployment.

Right policy depends on true theory.

“In order to tell the politicians and practitioners something about causes and best means, the economist needs the true theory or else he has not much more to offer than educated common sense or his personal opinion.” (Stigum)

Lacking the true theory, economists promote for more than 200 years opinion instead of knowledge.