Comment on Michael Roberts on ‘Some notes on the world economy now’
Michael Roberts summarizes: “The central argument of Marxian criticism is based on the law of value. This roughly means that companies only invest if they can make a profit. Profit is the centre of their actions and not the needs of the people.” and “For mainstream economists, profit simply does not matter. But even among the left-wing Keynesians, profit hardly appears. For them it is all about ‘demand’, about ‘speculation’ or about ‘financialisation’. These things all play a major role, but profit is the key category for understanding the capitalist process of production and accumulation.”
Yes, profit is the foundational concept of economics and economists get it wrong since Adam Smith/Karl Marx.
The major approaches Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and ALL get profit wrong. Economic policy guidance NEVER has had sound scientific foundations. To this day, economics is brain-dead political agenda-pushing.
Marx, too, got profit wrong.#1, #2 Because the foundational concept is false the whole analytical superstructure is false. Marx was too stupid for science and this holds for his followers without exception.
To say “I am a Marxist” is to say “I am either stupid or corrupt or both”.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
For details of the big picture see cross-references Profit/Distribution.
For more on Michael Roberts see AXECquery.