“Assessment: AXEC is partly right about accounting, but substantially overstates his conclusions. My rating: 4/10 for the economic argument as a whole. His emphasis on accounting consistency, profits and financial balances is valuable. However, his claim that Kalecki never understood profit is poorly supported, and his assertion that an economy must implode whenever aggregate monetary profit becomes negative is not established by his equation.” (James Young)‡ One of the unavoidable stomach-churners in economics is that scientifically incompetent folks pontificate about methodology. One of the dumbest phrases in economics is: That's an accounting identity, but economics is about human behavior. No, psychology and sociology are about human behavior; economics is about the economic system. Accounting relationships are systemic laws, and, best of all, they are testable. To be sure, utility maximization is not a testable proposition. Actually, it is much worse; for example, here are the neo-Walrasian axioms: “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) This behavioral axiom set consists of psycho-social hallucinations; its variables are NONENTITIES, and therefore its conclusions are not testable in principle. Equilibrium is the worst petitio principii of all. Every theory/model that contains the concept of equilibrium/disequilibrium is proto-scientific garbage. Economic methodology has been a scientific disaster from the Founding Fathers onward. Unfortunately, Keynes messed up the unavoidable Paradigm Shift from microfoundations to macrofoundations. See the graphic AXEC172a https://t.co/ynvCeZQGlx. Kalecki was somewhat better, but he, too, messed up profit and distributed profit. Profit is a balance, and distributed profit is a flow. Because of his methodological blunder, he got the concepts of income and saving wrong. In the elementary case, income is NOT the sum of wage income and profit, but of wage income and distributed profit. That's the first axiom in line 1. See also Kalecki got it wrong, Allais got it right https://t.co/MybEzLGDkg In table AXEC238a ⇓, the case of profit distribution is consistently dealt with. From the objective systemic axiom set in lines 1-3 follows that profit is equal to distributed profit, i.e., Qm:=Yd, if the expenditure ratio ρE of both wage income Yw and distributed profit Yd is 1 (line 15). In this case, the Capitalists reproduce their profit by fully spending their distributed profit on consumption. Thereby, they get a part of the real product O, without ever having contributed to its production. This is what Kalecki's famous punch line: they get what they spend, ultimately means. In principle, the Capitalists as a whole can make their profit as big as they want. Practically, they don't, because normally there is retained profit, and distributed profit is mostly saved. Luckily, there are other sources of profit Qm:=Yd+(I−Sm)+(G−T)+(X−M). Keynes and Kalecki are only special cases of the methodologically correct AXEC macrofoundations and, by implication, of the systemic Profit Law. Strictly speaking, Keynes, Kalecki and their followers were too stupid for the elementary math that underlies macroeconomic accounting. Note well that no behavioral economist ever arrived at the systemic Profit Law. Profit is the foundational variable of the subject matter. All behavioral profit explanations are provably false. Because profit is false, the whole of legacy economics is scientifically worthless. Against this backdrop, Kalecki was a real progress. ‡ It has been established in the working paper Mathematical Proof of the Breakdown of Capitalism https://t.co/2NkX9FRklW
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 30, 2026
AXEC: New Foundations of Economics
This blog connects to the AXEC Project which applies a superior method of economic analysis. The following comments have been posted on selected blogs as catalysts for the ongoing Paradigm Shift. The comments are brought together here for information. The full debates are directly accessible via the Blog-References. Scrap the lot and start again―that is what a Paradigm Shift is all about. Time to make economics a science.
October 30, 2026
Occasional X: The futile attempt to recycle Kalecki (XVIII)
Occasional X: The futile attempt to recycle Austrianism (CXXXIV)
“You haven’t exposed an Austrian deception. …First, Mises never claimed that markets operate like parliamentary democracies.” (Roaldcs) Already false: “The statement (“The market is a democracy. Capitalism is the consummation of the self-determination of consumers.”) is found in Ludwig von Mises's book Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (first published in 1944).” (Google AI) It is one of the tenets of Austrianism that a free-market economy and democracy are necessary complements. More precisely, the political concept of democracy is taken as the main selling proposition of an allegedly scientific theory. Logically, the free-market system should be justified as a superior economic system, not as the twin brother of freedom and democracy. Austrians have never done this. The Austrian approach has been proto-scientific garbage from the beginning. People buy the package, not the content. The package is shiny, the content is cheap crap. The Austrian package is freedom and democracy. Austrian economics is proto-scientific garbage. Austrian arguments have already been refuted one-by-one. For details, see the AXECquery The futile attempt to recycle Austrianism https://t.co/netz8fcVyf Austrians simply violate the foundational scientific principle: “In economics we should strive to proceed, wherever we can, exactly according to the standards of the other, more advanced, sciences, where it is not possible, once an issue has been decided, to continue to write about it as if nothing had happened.” (Morgenstern, 1941) Austrianism is the senseless repetition of long refuted arguments. It's a treadmill of stupidity. Their dumbest phrase is: That's only an accounting identity. Yes, accounting identities are systemic laws, and they are the logical precondition of testing. None of the behavioral hallucinations of Austrianism is testable. Austrians do not understand the difference between science and a quasi-religious Wahnsystem. Human-Nature economists in general, and Austrians in particular, are scientifically incompetent imbeciles and methodologically in the darkest woods. Economists never had a political mandate, as J. S. Mill already knew (AXEC166a ⇓).
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 30, 2026
Occasional X: The foul spirit of political economics (CDXIX)
“Austrian, more properly Mengerian economics, is perfect deduction from pure a priori first principles. So history, statistics, all empirical data, is irrelevant. Mengerianism is what must by true, not what merely happens, or any distracting reality.” (RFB) Methodologically, the Austrian Action Axiom is a tautology. Nobody can deny it, but nothing follows from it. Deduction does not work if the premises are false. Scientists have known this for more than 2400 years: “When the premises are certain, true, and primary and the conclusion formally follows from them, this is demonstration, and produces scientific knowledge of a thing.” Austrianism is proto-scientific garbage because of the behavioral premise. Economics is a genuine systems science, NOT a social science; i.e., it is NOT about Human Nature / motives / behavior / preferences / choice / incentives / values / actions / expectations, etc. Psycho-social economics has always been cargo cult science (Feynman's term). No way leads from the understanding of individual behavior to the understanding of the behavior of the economy as a whole. Mindreading homo oeconomicus, a.k.a. the economic agent, is (i) a futile exercise to begin with, and (ii) pointless because it runs with logical necessity into the Fallacy of Composition. Economics has defined itself as a social science and accordingly has been based on subjective/behavioral assumptions/axioms. This is the methodological ur-mistake. The major approaches (Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, and their derivatives) are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent. They all got profit wrong. When the subject's foundational concepts are inconsistent, the entire analytical superstructure is scientifically worthless. Put simply: Human-Nature economists in general, and Austrians in particular, are scientifically incompetent imbeciles and methodologically in the darkest woods. The Mises Institute is not an independent think tank with a scientific mission, but a dependent propaganda tank with a political mission.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 30, 2026
Occasional X: The futile attempt to recycle Kalecki (XVII)
“Kalecki's Theory of Economic Dynamics explains more about how firms actually set prices in a few chapters than the entire theory of subjective value and marginal utility.” (Mr.Keynes) Neither Mr.Keynes nor Michał Kalecki ever understood profit. That's the worst thing for an economist. For details, see Kalecki: the man who missed it by a hair's breadth https://t.co/JOlDMelY4C and Cross-references: Kalecki https://t.co/FemYl1aA8M The monetary economy in general, and the US economy, in particular, thrives on growing private/ public debt. If this growth stops, the economy implodes. Macroeconomic profit Qm is given by the axiomatically correct Profit Law Qm:=(I−Sm)+(G−T)+(X−M)+Yd. The minimum requirement for a free-market economy is that macroeconomic profit is greater than zero, i.e., Qm≥0. If Qm<0, recession/depression/breakdown results. Qm≥0 is the systemic existential precondition. This is easy to understand, but economists still don't get it. They can only think behaviorally, not systemically. PsySoc economics is proto-scientific garbage. The premise of mainstream economics, i.e., that the unfettered free-market economy is a self-adjusting, self-stabilizing, and self-optimizing system, is axiomatically false. This means that economics is a failed/fake science. Ultimately, this means that the representative economist is scientifically incompetent. Michał Kalecki took the first step, i.e., a valid critique. He never managed to advance to the Paradigm Shift. As Feynman put it: “The problem is not just to say that something might be wrong, but to replace it by something ― and that is not so easy.” To sell his outdated book on social media is a losing proposition.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 30, 2026
Occasional X: Paradigm Shift (CXXVIII)
“‘You tried to reason from an identity.’ A young Ronald Coase (or was it Hayek?) growled. ‘You should know better. In the real world, factors like ‘V’ and ‘T’ cannot simply be assumed to be held constant, because aggregates don’t interact with aggregates, individuals interact with individuals.'” (Nikolai Rostov) The problem with modern macro is that it is axiomatically false. Economics is failed/fake science. Microfoundations was dead from the start. 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. For example, here are the Walrasian axioms: “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 methodological mistake is that economists put the behavioral assumption of constrained optimization and equilibrium into the premises. This is a petitio principii, but economists do not know what this means. Stupidity makes faithful worshipers: “And so — faithful to the theory's conceptual cornerstones and hoping against all hope that the unthinkable may still be achieved (i.e., a satisfactory theory of the price mechanism) — the tormented upholders of the validity of the paradigmatic core of economic equilibrium theory appear singularly reluctant to face the problem of comparing expectations and results and assessing the consistency of the theory.” (Ingrao et al., 1990, p. 346) Although microfoundations is methodologically a false concept, economists repeat it nonetheless: “In economics we should strive to proceed, wherever we can, exactly according to the standards of the other, more advanced, sciences, where it is not possible, once an issue has been decided, to continue to write about it as if nothing had happened.” (Morgenstern, 1941, pp. 369-370) The way forward is to reconstruct economics entirely without the concepts of constrained optimization, rational expectations, equilibrium, and other NONENTITIES. In methodology, this is called a Paradigm Shift: “There is another alternative: to formulate a completely new research program and conceptual approach. As we have seen, this is often spoken of, but there is still no indication of what it might mean.” (Ingrao et al., 1990, p. 362) It means, first, that legacy economics goes down the scientific drain for good. It means, second, to go forward and perform the Paradigm Shift (⇓ AXEC113i). It means, finally, to bury microeconomists in the darkest corner of the Flat-Earth cemetery. Economics is a genuine system science, not a social science. Economists have gotten it wrong since the Founding Fathers. The EconNobel for 'economic sciences' is a scientific fraud.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 30, 2026
October 29, 2026
Occasional X: How it works (DXXVIII)
“Taught this way, economics is revealed as the story of human cooperation, with division of labour, profit and loss guiding us toward more productive activity.” (Mani Basharzad) Not true. Economics is taught the false Austrian way. Instead, profit may provide a strong incentive to corruption/ organized crime. The proof is given in table AXEC221b ⇓. The elementary production-consumption economy is given with three macroeconomic axioms in lines 1, 4, 7. The business sector is split into two identical firms in lines 1-2, 4-5, 7-8. Under the conditions of market-clearing and budget-balancing, this yields the price P in line 16. The price is here the dependent variable. In the initial state, the price is equal to unit wage costs W/R, and equal for both firms. The workers get the whole product O. The profit Qm for both firms and the business sector as a whole is zero. Now, the wage rate W in firm 1 is lowered arbitrarily; otherwise, both firms are identical in every respect. As a result, the market price P decreases in line 12. The profit of firm 1 increases in line 19; firm 2 makes a loss in line 20. Total profit remains zero. The household sector as a whole still gets the whole product O, but the workers of firm 1 can buy less with their lower income; the workers of firm 2 can buy more with their unchanged wage rate W and a lower price P. The firm that somehow manages to pay less for the same labor input increases profit. Firm 2 makes a loss and will go bankrupt if it does not also make a wage cut. As a result, firm 1 wins the race to the bottom. The workers of firm 1 cannot move to firm 2 because it no longer hires or doesn't exist any longer. This process of cross-over exploitation is inherent to capitalism and inevitably leads to higher concentration. If a firm can undercut minimum wage regulations, it can be said that the criminal firm wins and the honest firm loses. What remains in the long run is a degenerated/corrupted free-market economy. Taught this way, economics is revealed as the story of intra-sectoral cross-over exploitation between firms and between households.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 29, 2026
Occasional X: Clueless economists / Price Mechanism (XIX)
“The market is a democracy. Capitalism is the consummation of the self-determination of consumers.” (Ludwig von Mises) That's one of the biggest underhanded Austrian deceptions ever. There are two markets: the goods market and the labor market. The labor market is no democracy. Here, the workers/employees have not much to say. But the real wage is determined in the interaction of the goods and labor market. Austrians ignore the latter when praising Capitalism. According to the axiomatically correct macroeconomic Law of Supply and Demand, the real wage W/P in the elementary production-consumption economy (⇓ AXEC 28a) rises with the productivity R and declines with deficit-spending/money-creation, i.e., ρE>1. The formula gets a bit more complex for the open investment economy, but basically, it is ρE that separates real wage and productivity. Put simply, the macroeconomic wedge between real wages and productivity is due to private/public deficit-spending/money-creation. It holds that the profit of the business sector is equal to the deficit spending of the household and the government sector. In the most elementary case, i.e., ρE=1 and ρD=0, the real wage is equal to productivity R. The workers get the whole product; profit is zero. Note that (i) productivity is different from (ii) the 'marginal product of labor'. Note that (i) is objective/systemic, and (ii) is subjective/behavioral; it depends on the assumption of constrained optimization. Note that (i) is methodologically right and (ii) is wrong. Ultimately, the market is not a democratic allocation system but a quasi-Darwinian selection mechanism that increases the survival chances of the rich and decreases them for the poor. ρE>1 and ρD>0 favors the rich. That's how the Invisible Hand works. Democracy gets lost in the process. For more details, see Clueless economists / Price Mechanism (XI) https://t.co/iVKYSeXSU3
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 29, 2026