AXEC: New Foundations of Economics: Profit

Showing posts with label Profit. Show all posts

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 / 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

August 12, 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

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

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

August 8, 2026

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

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

August 6, 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

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

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

July 31, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Profit (CLVII)

“My firm is robots only, with no human living labour, and I produce suplus and profit....where does that come from? If not by living labour embedded within the commodity by the workers, then it should not be there, and yet it is. How?” (Kell Morr)

Too bad that your robots can't…
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) July 31, 2026

July 30, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (CDXCVI)

“Muh profit is theft!!!! Whereas in the real world, Marx’s own labor theory of value was dead by volume 3 of Capital after treating it as iron law in volume 1. Böhm-Bawerk asked a simple question: why does capital earn a return at all?” (Rothmus)

The short answer is that both… pic.twitter.com/8iBg6rcYtJ
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) July 30, 2026

Notice: Improved version

July 29, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (CDXCV)

“Two economists published a mathematical proof that AI will destroy the economy. It’s called 'The AI Layoff Trap' and it exposes a devastating economic contradiction that every CEO can see coming, and none of them can stop.” (How to Prompt)

Actually, this is the old problem of a… pic.twitter.com/LpVeB5NCXJ
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) July 29, 2026

July 28, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (CDXCIV)

“How did past societies end their disintegrative periods? A critical step is reversing the root cause of crisis—the perverse wealth pump that takes from the common people and gives to the elites. As described in End Times, good times breed complacency among the governing elites.”…
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) July 28, 2026

For more on the profit/wealth pump, see AXECquery.

July 27, 2026

Occasional X: Econ 101― still proto-scientific garbage (XVIII)

“So, GDP can be measured also by adding up everyone’s incomes – wages, salaries, interests, profits, and government income. GDP and national income are therefore two sides of the same coin.” (Partha Dasgupta)

This is the foundational error of legacy economics. Partha Dasgupta's…
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) July 27, 2026

July 24, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Science (CCCLXII)

“Price spikes don’t create shortages, they reveal them. ehsanmousavi4 explains why profits guide the market’s response when uncertainty hits.” (Foundations for Economic Education)

Friedrich Hayek never understood profit and how the markets function.

(i) The free-market system…
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) July 24, 2026

July 23, 2026

Occasional X: Clueless economists / Profit (CLVI)

“We contribute to the debate on the production of ideas by examining the scientific output of an entire field. We map the evolution of economic research by classifying 300,000 articles published in 1950–2020 using text analysis methods.” (Inclusive Productivity Network)

It's… pic.twitter.com/GPU6fs2kIw
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) July 23, 2026

July 22, 2026

Occasional X: How it works (CDXCII)

“Becoming wealthy is relatively easy. It requires hard work and discipline.” (Michael Arouet)

Wealth has not much to do with 'hard work and discipline'. Michael Arouet never understood profit and, by consequence, how the economic system works.

The U.S. economy is known to run…
— AXEC (@EgmontHandtke) July 22, 2026

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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.