Blog-Reference
“NPR’s Planet Money went to the 2020 American Economic Association conference in San Diego where they asked economists, ‘what is the most useful idea in economics?’ David Autor appears near the end of the episode to talk about the lump-of-labor fallacy. Almost exactly 87 years earlier, on January 18, 1933, Arthur Dahlberg appeared before a Senate subcommittee to give testimony on the thirty-hour work week bill. The lump-of-labor fallacy would be a useful idea indeed if it would show economists how little they have learned and how much they have forgotten in the intervening 87 years.”#1
For a summary, Sandwichman quotes Dahlberg: “The whole economic mechanism is so involved that we get lost in following the process.” and “… I tried to devise a technique by which I could more vividly present these economic interrelationships. I concluded the technique of the use of words for describing social process is inadequate. It is almost impossible to get agreement on what is happening, much misinterpretation over words. The memory forgets, and the best ones can not consider more than one aspect of the problem at a time.”
Indeed, that is why economists have not figured out in 200+ years how the economy works. Economists are still in the proto-scientific swamp where “nothing is clear and everything is possible” (Keynes) and they have NOTHING of scientific value to show for. The major approaches — Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT — are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent and all got the foundational economic concept profit wrong. The usefulness of economists consists NOT of any scientific achievement but their employability as useful political idiots.
This keeps economists occupied in decently paid jobs. Economists, in turn, keep their lump-of-labor intact by recycling brain-dead stuff ad infinitum.
Now, the fun is over. The Employment Law is given as a testable formula.#2 This puts an abrupt end to the conversation and makes scores of economists unemployed — including Sandwichman.
#1 To begin with, it is a naive idea to go to the ASSA in order to find out whether economists have produced anything useful or worthwhile. ASSA is a rally where economists get their communicative marching orders. See ASSA2020 has been a success ― sorta kinda.
#2 Go! ― test the Profit and Employment Law
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REPLY to Sandwichman on Jan 26“Economics is the study of the economy, not the study of economists.” (Ricardo Reis)
So, it is absolutely irrelevant that you are a devout non-economist.
The question is how the actual economy works. If you know, tell it but do not recycle silly dialogues from the history of garbage economics.
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Switch of threads
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REPLY to Sandwichman on Feb 1
The time evolution of the most elementary economic system is given by the economic God Equation.#1
Because the equation consists of measurable variables it is testable in principle and therefore satisfies basic scientific requirements.
The equation fully replaces the Dahlberg/Goldberg depictions which can now be disposed of for good on the garbage dump.
#1 Wikimedia AXEC25a
