AXEC: New Foundations of Economics

October 20, 2026

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

“What do Larry Kudlow, Janet Yellen, Steve Mnuchin, econJaredB & me have in common? We all believe the permitting reform bill is essential for America to build, grow, tackle climate change and maintain our technological lead. Probably the broadest letter I've ever signed.” (Jason Furman) Scientifically competent economists do not sign propaganda letters. Only political agenda pushers do. Reminder: Economists never had a mandate for political agenda pushing: “A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser for practice. His part is only to show that certain consequences follow from certain causes, and that to obtain certain ends, certain means are the most effectual. Whether the ends themselves are such as ought to be pursued, and if so, in what cases and to how great a length, it is no part of his business as a cultivator of science to decide, and science alone will never qualify him for the decision.” (J. S. Mill) Obviously, economists never understood J. S. Mill, i.e., what science is all about. For over 200 years, economics has claimed to be a science, but it still isn't. 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. Economic policy guidance has never had valid scientific foundations. It has never been much more than the blather of confused confusers (⇓ AXEC141g). The representative economist is NOT, and never has been, a competent scientist but an agenda pusher / useful idiot / impostor / phrase monger / storyteller / troll / pseudo-psychologist / self-gloryfier / 'good-cause' fighter / clown in the political Circus Maximus. For example, watch the PR stunts of Jason Furman and his sorry bunch of letter-signers.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 20, 2026

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

“There's no such thing as a free lunch.” (Milton Friedman) Of course, there is. Milton Friedman never understood profit and, by consequence, how the economic system works. That's self-defeating for an economist. The free-market economy runs on profit. Macroeconomic profit is given by the axiomatically correct Profit Law Qm:=(I−Sm)+(G−T)+(X−M)+Yd. The Profit Law implies PublicDeficit=PrivateProfit Qm:=(G−T)>0, i.e., macroeconomic profit is (co-)produced by deficit-spending/money-creation, i.e., the growth of public debt. In free-market economies, public debt has increased with minor interruptions for over 200 years. Therefore, Qm:=(G−T)>0 has been a critical factor for Capitalism's survival. The free-market economy is continuously saved from breakdown by the deficit-spending/money-creating duo of treasury/ central bank, i.e., the State. This means that the premise of legacy 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 failed/fake science. Economists are not scientists. They are mostly silly wafflers for a low-IQ audience. Milton Friedman has been the most prominent case. The free-market polity is an Oligarchy with parliament / treasury / central bank / capital markets / big business / three-letter agencies as integral parts. With the other determinants excluded for the moment, private financial wealth grows with public debt. Eventually, WeTheOligarchy owns the financial assets, and WeThePeople owe the public debt and are taxed for interest on government bonds as long as the debt is rolled over. Interest payments on the debt reduce their disposable income for an indefinite time. The government taxes WeThePeople on behalf of WeTheOligarchy. This profit/interest/tax triple-whopper produces wealth for WeTheOligarchy and debt and real-income reductions for WeThePeople. On closer inspection, WeTheOligarchy gets three free lunches. This explains the observable distribution. In addition to legitimate monetary operations, the central bank is well-positioned to carry out or support illicit operations that are economically equivalent to putting counterfeit money into circulation. The volume of illicit deficit spending and money creation, as well as the quantity of Dark Money in circulation, is not publicly known. Therefore, Profit and Distribution Theory has no empirical leg to stand on. The financial sub-sector, big business, and billionaires recycle some of their profits and financial wealth to control major public, private, and political institutions. Thus, they corrupt the polity. In essence, this is how the self-alimentation and self-preservation of WeTheOligarchy work. Capitalism thrives on free lunches that are ultimately supplied by the duo of treasury/central bank, i.e., the State. There are no free lunches for WeThePeople, but there are voluminous free lunches for WeTheOligarchy. Milton Friedman should have known this.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 20, 2026

Occasional X: There is an absolute limit to the growth of public debt (VII)

“The Debt/GDP ratio should not be stable at the top of a business cycle. It should be stable over the whole cycle. If it is stable at the top of the business cycle, it will ratchet up over the whole cycle (as we have seen since 2000). This is unsustainable.” (Jon Steinsson) In free-market economies, public debt has increased with minor interruptions for 200+ years. Growing debt has always been a crucial ingredient in Capitalism's life elixir. The representative economist doesn't get it. Put simply, he gets the foundational concepts of profit, distributed profit, income, saving, deficit, and debt wrong. That's why economics has been failed/fake science for 200+ years. The monetary economy in general 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 Law implies Qm:=(G−T)>0, i.e., macroeconomic profit is (co-)produced by deficit-spending/money-creation, i.e., the growth of public debt. 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. This should be easy to understand, but it has always been above economists' mental capacity. The free-market economy is continuously saved from breakdown by the deficit-spending/money-creating duo of Treasury/Central Bank, i.e., the State. This means that 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. Ultimately, this means that the representative economist is too stupid for science. Currently, the USA is exploding the public debt. This increases macroeconomic profit Qm, according to the Profit Law. The point is that this is only the beginning. Profit will continue to increase exponentially and with it the number of billionaires/trillionaires. It does not matter how badly the real economy performs. The growing public debt ultimately benefits WeTheOligarchy and not WeThePeople. Since the household sector is taxed for interest on government bonds, there is an absolute upper limit for the growth of public debt, which is roughly given by public_debt * avg_interest_rate ≦wage_income. Economic problems, though, start much earlier because of other irreducible items in the budget (military, health, etc.) and a not exactly known upper tax-to-income limit. The limit moves further away into the future if the interest rate approaches zero. If interest rates go up, the wall will be hit sooner. Note well that the State acts as the interest collector for WeTheOligarchy. The USA is a clear example of how Capitalism works and that it will break down with systemic necessity. President Trump is currently in acceleration mode.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 20, 2026

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

“ChatGPT has identified 36 varieties of Keynesianism.” (Khazbi Budonov) There are 36 varieties of Keynesianism, which is not enough because the original theory has been proven false (⇓ AXEC172a). Keynes got macroeconomics axiomatically wrong. His scientifically incompetent followers never spotted the methodological defect. After-Keynesian macrofoundations are not a real improvement of the legacy microeconomic approach. Both are axiomatically false. Keynes, too, misunderstood the concept of profit because he was too stupid for elementary algebra. Consequently, he botched the long-overdue Paradigm Shift from microfoundations to macrofoundations. This initial blunder means that the entire field of economics (both micro and macro) is proto-scientific garbage. As a result, economics has never been more than silly blather for a low-IQ audience. The After-Keynesian critique of mainstream economics is spot on, but their alternative is also scientifically worthless. For details, see Cross-references: Keynesianism https://t.co/ZoIDUg46Lg
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 20, 2026

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

“The fatal challenge to heterodox economics is that there isn't actually orthodox economics.” (Jason Furman) Nice try at keeping all in the swamp of inconclusiveness where “nothing is clear and everything is possible” (Keynes). 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. This holds for Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy; however it is delineated. The minimum requirement in science is logical consistency. Economists never rose above confused blather. As far as an approach is formalized, economists apply the wrong math. However: “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) To finally become a science, economics needs a Paradigm Shift from false behavioral microfoundations and false Keynesian macrofoundations to true macrofoundations (⇓ AXEC121l). Teaching economics these days is a sure sign of either stupidity or corruption or both. Currently, nonentity economics is rewarded with the EconNobel, and this is why we have a closed circle of idiocy. Jason Furman is living proof of an incompetent scientist.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 20, 2026

October 19, 2026

Occasional X: Paradigm Shift (CXXVII)

“Economists spent 200 years assuming humans make perfect decisions, until a political scientist proved we just grab the first option that's good enough, won the Nobel Prize in economics for it, and then taught a machine to think the exact same way. …His name was Herbert Simon. The book is called Administrative Behavior.” (Millie Marconi) It has been well known for a long time that behavioral microfoundations have been proto-scientific garbage from the beginning. However, this is the original scientific corruption of economics: “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) Every economics student can see that the entire history of economic thought is the history of scientific failure. Either he is (i) a scientist and tries to perform the inevitable Paradigm Shift, or (ii) he joins the ranks of brain-dead academic parrots. Needless to emphasize, that, given the incentive structure, he chooses (ii), and ultimately his cognitive dissonance ends in schizophrenia. Then, he is finally awarded the EconNobel. 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. Economics is not a behavioral science, but a genuine systems science. Therefore, to finally become a science, economics needs a Paradigm Shift from false behavioral microfoundations and false Keynesian macrofoundations to true macrofoundations. Herman Simon rectified the standard behavioral assumptions. However: “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) Herman Simon proved legacy economics wrong, but he missed the Paradigm Shift.
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) October 19, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCXCIX)

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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.