Occasional X: The history of economic thought is the history of scientific failure (XLVI)

 

“This SEP entry on Capitalism is garbage. I would recommend a full, clean reboot.” (Otto Letho)

The History of Economic Thought is the history of scientific failure.

Friedrich Hayek never understood profit and, by logical consequence, how the economic system works. This is… pic.twitter.com/lBv5n6DXWw

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 15, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXXVI)

“The answer to the water-diamond paradox falsified Marx’s assumption that value is derived from labor. Adam Smith in 1776 couldn’t answer why diamonds cost a bundle whereas water costs almost nothing in comparison although it’s necessary for survival. Carl Menger figured out that… pic.twitter.com/Febjk7TCYX

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 15, 2026

Occasional X: The futile attempt to recycle Marx (LX)

“People are blowing this out of proportion because some economists got upset bc Marx, who is legitimately one of the greatest thinkers on capitalism, gets his proper place in the history of economics.” (Joshua)

The crucial point with Marx/ Socialism/ Communism/ Capitalism is…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 14, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXXV)

“A lot of negative comments by fellow economists on this interesting and engaging discussion of the topic of capitalism, …” (Matias Vernengo)

The History of Economic Thought is the history of scientific failure.

Economics has been failed/fake science since the founding…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 14, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXXIV)

“According to this account, the two necessary conditions for capitalism are the free market and private property. Arguably, Milton Friedman's (1962) and Friedrich Hayek's (1944) distinctive variants of this approach have been the most influential. For capitalism to exist, there…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 13, 2026

Occasional X: The history of economic thought is the history of scientific failure (XLV)

The History of Economic Thought is the history of scientific failure.

Economics has been failed/fake science since the founding fathers. It has defined itself as a social science and accordingly has been based on subjective/behavioral assumptions/axioms. This is the… pic.twitter.com/siio7WsVM6

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 13, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Breakdown (XXVIII)

“Interest on the national debt will surpass $1.3 trillion this fiscal year; if Congress doesn't get its act together and cut spending, the bond vigilantes will eventually force that change; w/ $40 trillion in debt, it may come sooner than you think... Interest on the debt was a…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 13, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Distribution, Inequality (XXI)

“NEW: income inequality in US & UK is so wide that while the richest are very well off, the poorest have a worse standard of living than the poorest in countries like Slovenia. Essentially, US & UK are poor societies with some very rich people.” (John Burn-Murdoch)

The…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 13, 2026

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXLVII)

 

“My new Conversation with Daron Acemoglu, most of all about his new book on liberalism, …” (Tyler Cowen)

Neither Daron Acemoglu nor Tyler Cowen ever understood profit and, consequently, how the economic system works. Their conversation is the usual political disinfotainment.… pic.twitter.com/jEr2cq1WrX

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 13, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Profit (CLX)

“The Marxian definition is the most parsimonious: a social-economic structure in which production (& hence human activity) is decided by the expansion of value in monetary form.” (bevelymantle)

The crucial point with Marx/Socialism/Communism/Capitalism is whether Marx understood…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 12, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Profit (CLIX)

“Javier Milei names his favorite economists Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Gary Becker, Milton Friedman, etc.” (Hayek Quotes)

Murray Rothbard never understood profit. Consequently, he never understood how the economic system works. The… pic.twitter.com/sCcXwS0MnX

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 12, 2026

Related 'The futile attempt to recycle Austrianism (CXIX)' 

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXXIII)

“Three years in the making, and it’s finally out!” (Chiara Cordelli)

The History of Economic Thought is the history of scientific failure.

Economics has been failed/fake science since the founding fathers. It has defined itself as a social science and accordingly has been based…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 12, 2026

Occasional X: Scrap the EconNobel (XLXVIII)

Prizes are often not based on true merit. Like the Oscar, they are mainly a marketing/PR instrument. Honoring the look-alike happens in all walks of life. Most economics prizes are a reward for political disinfotainment.

Although it claims to be a science, economics is not one.… pic.twitter.com/PKzk1CA5ih

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 12, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (DII)

“The 2008 financial crisis did not appear out of nowhere. It was manufactured, step by step, by the Federal Reserve, Congress, and a constellation of Wall Street banks who all correctly understood that the government would socialize their losses.” (Handre)

Handre never…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 12, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Employment (XXXVII)

“Hayek and Keynes are remembered as fierce intellectual rivals. What’s less known is that the two were actually friends who held each other in high regard.” (Hayek Quotes)

Neither Hayek nor Keynes got employment theory right. Scientific incompetence was what they had in common.… pic.twitter.com/YYG7YLRhKx

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 11, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXXII)

“The Republic, written around 380 BC, describes a city where philosopher-kings govern by virtue of superior wisdom, where private property disappears for the guardian class, where poets get expelled for corrupting the young, and where eugenicists manage reproduction.” (Handre)… pic.twitter.com/ZHGyHTmZHP

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 10, 2026

Occasional X: The futile attempt to recycle Austrianism (CXX)

“The biggest take away from Austrian economics is that the entire economy is made up of millions of small decisions by millions of humans minute by minute.” (Handre)

And the Austrians discovered that? WOW! That would be awesome if it weren't so trivial!

Of course, systemic… pic.twitter.com/CDbX1VEhnO

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 10, 2026

Occasional X: The futile attempt to recycle Austrianism (CXIX)

 

“Murray Rothbard sat down and wrote Man, Economy, and State in 1962, and produced what remains the most rigorous reconstruction of economic theory from first principles ever attempted by a single human mind. You should treat this book the way physicists treat Newton's Principia:… pic.twitter.com/ZKOJWJewyN

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 10, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (DI)

“Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk sat in Vienna in 1884 and published Capital and Interest, and in doing so dismantled every socialist theory of exploitation that Karl Marx spent decades constructing. His weapon was time preference. You value a dollar today more than a dollar next year.… pic.twitter.com/NnXyjdekOS

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 9, 2026

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXLVI)

“We must look at the price system as such a mechanism for communicating information if we want to understand its real function.” (Friedrich Hayek, quoted by Foundations for Economic Education)

Don't look at the price system; that's Hayek's misdirection or communicative magic.…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 9, 2026

Correction: “This core magic technique is called misdirection ..." is from the Google AI prompt.

 

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Profit (CLVIII)

“IN THIS HOUSE, WE DERIVE: THE INVISIBLE HAND THEOREM FROM THE RATIONAL CHOICE POSTULATE VIA INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS THAT'S THE MAINLINE OF ECONOMICS FROM ADAM SMITH TO VERNON SMITH.” (Nathan Goodman, quoted by Peter Boettke)

The mainline has always been false.

The founding… pic.twitter.com/qtfQTU0Ghd

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 8, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Money (CXLXI)

 

“The characteristic which has been traditionally supposed to render gold especially suitable for use as the standard of value, namely, its inelasticity of supply, turns out to be precisely the characteristic which is at the bottom of the trouble.” (J. M. Keynes, quoted by… pic.twitter.com/ecaeRq7A3M

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 8, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Money (CXLX)

“Mises argued that inflation is the increase in the money supply, not the resulting rise in consumer prices.” (Christina Pushaw)

von Mises's monetary theory is provably false.

For the axiomatically correct approach, see the working paper ⇒
The Dark-Matter Theory of Fiat Money…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 7, 2026

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXLV)

 

“Milton Friedman on 4 ways to spend money:

1) Your money on yourself (you’re careful about both cost and quality)
2) Your money on others (you care about cost, less about quality)
3) Someone else’s money on yourself (you care about quality, not cost)
4) Someone else’s money on…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 7, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (D)

“Capitalism is very good at producing wealth. What it is not particularly good at is making sure that wealth, productive capacity, and human needs actually line up. That was one of the lessons Keynes took from the Great Depression. …The conventional answer was that markets would… pic.twitter.com/LrAe3wZ6Fv

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 7, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXXI)

“The market is essentially an ordering mechanism, growing up without anybody wholly understanding it, that enables us to utilize widely dispersed information about the significance of circumstances of which we are mostly ignorant.” (quoted by Hayek Quotes)

Friedrich Hayek never… pic.twitter.com/37QznhOuMk

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 6, 2026

Related 'Capitalism, poverty, exploitation, and cross-over exploitation'

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXLIV)

“Economics as tool for the curious and compassionate.” (Peter Boettke)

“Economics as tool for the stupid and corrupt.” (AXEC)

The founding fathers defined economics as a social science, and, accordingly, it has been based on subjective/behavioral assumptions/axioms. This has…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 6, 2026

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXLIII)

“In terms of research, he made major contributions in multiple fields of economics. And, outside academia, he has arguably been the most influential economist of the past 60 years — and not just in the United States. Selling policy advice based on economic theory... We could use… pic.twitter.com/W72J5m2KQ6

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 5, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (CDXCIX)

 

“The first and most important equation in the world of money looks like this:

FV = PV × (1 + r)^n

That is it. Five symbols. Let me translate them into human.

FV = future value. What your money will be worth later.
PV = present value. What you have now.
r = rate of return per… pic.twitter.com/q7EJR3IjUc

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 5, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXX)

“I think one thing Marxists would take good care to note is that Marx’s critique of political economy was primarily targeted towards the classicals, … but the Ecomomic Sciences has long moved on the Classicals.” (Nikolai Rostov)

Actually, this is irrelevant. What Marx wanted…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 5, 2026

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXLII)

“Much of what is said about economics is little better than gaslighting....” (Richard Murphy)

The founding fathers defined economics as a social science, and accordingly, it has been based on subjective/behavioral assumptions/axioms. This has been the methodological ur-mistake.… pic.twitter.com/HrCFYkAEX8

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 4, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXIX)

“Ricardo begins with the simplest case: the commodities are produced by one type of labor alone, working perhaps on free land (I, 12 ff.) In this simplest case the relative values of commodities will clearly equal the relative quantities of labor necessary to produce them, and… pic.twitter.com/UWrvJdMR6x

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 4, 2026

For more on Ricardo, see the AXECblog. 

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXVIII)

“The beauty of Austrian economics is that it springs from real human action and does not depend upon the construction of abstract mathematical models meant to parallel reality.” (James Anthony)

Austrianism is a cargo cult science, and Austrians are look-alike scientists. How do…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 3, 2026

Occasional X: The futile attempt to recycle Austrianism (CXVIII)

 

“Let me offer a sensible middle ground between rigid empiricism (inductivism) and Praxeology, which is rigid deductivism.” (Nikolai Rostov)

No, there is no middle ground between true and false. Austrianism is provably false. If Austrianism were to disappear overnight, this would… pic.twitter.com/b4REJ72Bze

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 3, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Value (II)

“In 1871, Menger published his groundbreaking Principles of Economics, arguing that the value of a good is not determined by the labour required to produce it, but by the subjective importance individuals place on it. Value is not objective or embodied in objects. It is marginal… pic.twitter.com/mRXVWf9BjI

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 3, 2026

Related 'The value of water and diamonds: back to square one' and 'Value — the Bermuda Triangle for economic theories'

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXVII)

 

“Among the great economists of the Austrian School, Javier Milei is achieving something that seemed reserved for the dreams of a few idealists: uniting theory and practice on an unprecedented scale.” (Diego Angulo)

Austrianism is failed/fake science. Therefore, it's the usual… pic.twitter.com/ulwr8kdQiy

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 2, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXVI)

“Economics is, as Knight, Mises, Hayek and Buchanan taught, is a science, just a unique science dealing with human action and social relations.” (Peter Boettke)

When economists are told that economics does not satisfy the scientific standards of material and formal consistency,… pic.twitter.com/XBzOtXaPV6

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 2, 2026

For more about J. S. Mill, see AXECquery. 

Occasional X: The futile attempt to recycle Austrianism (CXVII)

“As Ludwig von Mises showed, economics is the study of human behaviour. And the tools of economics can explain far more than markets, prices and production - they can illuminate almost every aspect of human behaviour.” (Creative Deduction)

No, economics is not 'the study of… pic.twitter.com/bExzWDLwM2

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 2, 2026

Occasional X: AI — boosting scientific competence in economics (XV) / Axiomatization

“AI is solving some of mathematics hardest long-running open problems (impressive indeed). Can it also solve some of the hardest open problems in economics?” (Atif Mian, quoted by Potus Rendahl)

No. This has already been tried, but AI is trained on the old stuff and cannot… pic.twitter.com/W8i6MTXMmi

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 2, 2026

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXLI)

“Milton Friedman gets a lot of cheap shots thrown at him, but he is the best communicator of economic ideas I have ever encountered.” (Peter Boettke)

After a lot of cheap shots, Milton Friedman got the refutation bullet right through his head.

Milton Friedman never understood… pic.twitter.com/pWyRa2BA6a

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 2, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Equilibrium (IV)

“My last update for my general proof/summary of general equilibrium.” (Nikolai Rostov)

Learn to read and think. Equilibrium is long gone.

For details, see
Forget equilibriumhttps://t.co/EUMjE0oyEM

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 2, 2026

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXL)

“Upon rereading the works of Lord Keynes I can see his knack and aspirations for genuine innovation (in the economic sciences) but his language is extremely tortured, and oftentimes he falls to tautology.” (Nikolai Rostov)

Keynes, too, misunderstood the concept of profit because… pic.twitter.com/eHc1eDPxYG

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 2, 2026

Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CCCXXXIX)

“that moment as a kid when you realize that you're definitely an austrian” (Robert Murphy)

No competent scientist can ever become an Austrian. Robert Murphy never understood profit, and by logical consequence, how the economic system works. This is self-disqualifying and… pic.twitter.com/8jb8V2Q8uz

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 2, 2026

Occasional X: Economists’ eternal problem with methodology (XV)

 

“I prefer true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much indetermined and unpredictable, to a pretence of exact knowledge that is likely to be false.” (Friedrich Hayek)

This is one of the most revealing propositions in the field of methodology. It immediately proves that…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 1, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (CDXCVIII)

“Argentina's Milei Borrows Warren Buffett's Idea To Punish Deficit-Spending Politicians.” (zerohedge)

Javier Milei never understood profit, and by logical consequence, how the economic system works. He bases his policies on Austrian economics. Austrianism has always been…

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 1, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (CDXCVII)

“Nobody will dare to stop inflation because to discontinue inflation will inevitably cause extensive unemployment. So assuming inflation stops it will quickly be resumed.” (Friedrich Hayek)

That's wrong. Friedrich Hayek never understood profit and, by logical consequence, how… pic.twitter.com/x8MXqOC0EX

— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) August 1, 2026

Related 'Cross-references: Employment/Phillips Curve'