Occasional X: Clueless economists / Employment (XV)

 

#LearnRealEcon

“NAIRU does not hold water simply because it does not exist — and to base economic policy on such a weak theoretical and empirical construct is nothing short of writing out a prescription for self-inflicted economic havoc.” (Lars Syll)

True, #EmploymentTheory has… pic.twitter.com/5QEAFgNJH0

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) November 21, 2024

Occasional X: How it works (CCXLX)

 

#HowItWorks

“Few issues in politics and economics are nowadays more discussed — and less understood — than public debt.” (Lars Syll)

The #FreeMarketEconomy runs on profit. Macroeconomic profit is given by the axiomatically correct #ProfitLaw / #BalancesEquation…

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) September 14, 2024

How to deal with the impossible science

 Comment on Lars Syll on 'Why economics is an impossible science'

Blog-Reference

Economics claims to be a science, but it is NOT. The major approaches (Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, and their derivatives) are axiomatically false & materially/formally inconsistent & ALL got profit wrong. So, economic policy guidance has never had valid scientific foundations. Because of their scientific incompetence, economists are a clear and present danger to their fellow citizens. #1

Lars Syll concedes that so-called orthodox economics is a failed/fake science. As a well-established scientific loser, he argues with a worn-out cliche: “Economics is unlike physics and chemistry as natural sciences but it partakes of the life sciences including their extensions as the social sciences. While these "science" qualify as "science" owing to their assumption of naturalism and use the scientific method, the application of method is determined by the type of subject matter.” #2

Lars Syll, however, claims that the characterization as a failed/fake science “doesn't necessarily apply to so-called heterodox schools like MMT”.

Why?

“Instead, MMT adopts an historical and institutional approach which recognizes economics as a study of events from particular perspectives that are conditioned by both subjective and objective considerations instead of presuming that economics is based on invariant principles similar to the natural sciences.”

First methodological mistake: Economics is about how the economy works. It is a systems science and NOT a social science, i.e., NOT about Human Nature / Motives / Behavior / Preferences / Choice / Incentives / Expectations, etc. Psycho-social economics has always been proto-scientific garbage. #3 It is only good for political blathering/agenda pushing.

Second methodological mistake: MMT gets the objective side of the economic system wrong. More precisely, MMTers are too stupid for the elementary algebra that is necessary to determine macroeconomic profit. Clearly, when the foundational concept of the subject matter ― profit ― is provably false, the whole analytical superstructure is scientifically worthless. #4

There is no way out. Economics in all its manifestations is a failed/fake science. MMT is no exception.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Iatrogenic economics

#2 This is what Feynman called cargo cult science. Cross-references Proto-Science/Cargo Cult Science/Fake Science

#3 Cross-references Not a Science of Behavior

#4 Cross-references Profit

***

Graphic AXEC106p

Occasional Xs: Clueless economists / Profit (XXVII)

 

#Economics#FailedFakeScience#Profit

The history of economic thought is the history of scientific failure and it goes from A. Smith/D. Ricardo onwards to P. Sraffa/L. Syll.

Ricardo, too, got profit theory wronghttps://t.co/hAbgvDcx17

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) January 15, 2024

For details of the big picture see cross-references Profit. 

Occasional Tweets: Economics is not science ― the representative economist is in the disinfotainment business

 

#Econ#DisInfoTainment#Economics is #FailedFakeScience. The representative #Economist is NOT a #Scientist but an #AgendaPusher / #Clown in the political #CircusMaximus.

Lars Syll is an #EconBlocker.#EconBlockers violate the Code of Professional Conduct. pic.twitter.com/6nhYFZ1J4u

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) March 28, 2023

For details of the big picture see cross-references The Representative Economist. 

Occasional Tweets: To this day, economists don't get was science is

 

#Econ#FailedFakeScience

Scientific #Truth is defined by material AND formal #Consistency. #Economics fails on BOTH counts. #Economists are NOT #Scientists but #AgendaPushers / #Clowns in the political #CircusMaximus. Lars Syll is one of them.⇒https://t.co/xM9Qi15Jvs pic.twitter.com/Jx6qveT4Jy

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) February 16, 2023

 

For details of the big picture see cross-references Failed/Fake Scientists  and cross-references The Representative Economist. 

The sense of economics is agenda-pushing for the Oligarchy

Comment on Lars Syll on ‘Making sense of economics’

Blog-Reference

We know that economics has a science problem. The history of economic thought is the history of scientific failure. The major approaches — Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT — are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent and all got the foundational economic concept of profit wrong. To this day, economists are NOT scientists but clowns/useful idiots in the political Circus Maximus.

Economics: failure, fake, fraud

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

Occasional Tweets: Economists and their scientifically lethal lack of logic

 

#Econ#FakeScience#Keynes reasoned in the GT “Income = value of output = consumption + investment. Saving = income − consumption. Therefore saving = investment.” (p. 63)

This syllogism is provably false but #Economists do not realize anything bc of a lethal #LackOfLogic.

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) August 12, 2021

Lack of Logic

• Economics and Logic ― an empty set to this day
• Logic is a faculty economists never had and never missed
• Economists are too stupid for elementary logic ― the final proof
• Do economists finally wake up from their methodological delirium?
• Controlled demolition of MMT ― an exercise in elementary logic
• “But economics is not pure mathematics or logic” No, it is pure blather
• Note on Lars Syll on ‘Cauchy logic’ in economics
• Economics: the simple logic of failure
• Keynes and the logical brilliance of Bedlam
• Troubles with logic?
• Flawed logic

The three dumbest MMT arguments

Comment on Lars Syll on ‘It’s not the debt we need to fix, stupid! It’s our thinking.’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference

1. “Can a government go bankrupt? No. You cannot be indebted to yourself.”

The 3-sector Profit Law Q≡(G−T)+(I−S)+Yd implies Public Deficit = Private Profit. So, private financial wealth grows in lockstep with public debt. WeThePeople owes the debt and is taxed for the interest payments to the Oligarchy for an indefinite time. The upper limit for the public debt ― which is in class terms the debt of the working class to the capitalist class ― is given by the interest burden in relation to wage income.#1

2. “Can a central bank go bankrupt? No. A central bank in a monetary sovereign country can always ‘print’ more money.”

Yes, the central bank creates money out of nothing at any time and any amount. There is no technical problem. The economic problem is whether the central bank finances the wage bill of the business sector or whether it finances the government’s direct or indirect purchase of current output. In the latter case, the central bank acts like a counterfeiter who helps the government to redistribute output among WeThePeople.#2

3. “Do taxpayers have to repay government debts? No, at least not as long the debt is incurred in a country’s own currency.”

Public debt can be rolled over for an indefinite time. And for this time it is the interest cash cow of the Oligarchy. However, pushing debt beyond the time horizon does not mean that it vanishes. Central bank money is a specific form of an IOU, i.e. the liability side of the central bank's balance sheet (= money) is equal to the amount of short- or long-term debt on the credit side.#3 It is the defining property of debt that it has eventually to be repaid. So yes, the grandchildren of WeThePeople have to repay the public debt to the grandchildren of the Oligarchy.#3, #4

With deficit-spending/money-creation, i.e. a growing public debt, actual problems are not really solved but merely shifted beyond the time horizon. Ultimately, this is to the advantage of the Oligarchy and to the disadvantage of WeThePeople.

Whether they know it or not does not matter: MMTers in general and Lars Syll, in particular, are just the useful idiots of the Oligarchy.#5 Academic economics is provably false, that is, scientifically worthless.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 From the debt economy to the gift economy: how America is brainwashed to love budget deficits

#2 MMT, money creation, stealth taxation, and redistribution

#3 The ultimate ― analytical ― origin of money

#4 How to pay for the war and to be bamboozled by economists

#5 Criminals and the monetary order

For the full-spectrum refutation of MMT see cross-references MMT.

For more about Lars Syll see AXECquery.

Occasional Tweets: If this is the top, how does the bottom look like?

 

#Economics#FailedScience#FakeScience#Economists#StupidOrCorruptOrBoth

Lars Syll, fake scientisthttps://t.co/z8mypKm4Wz#DefundEconomics #FireEconomists #ScrapTheLot pic.twitter.com/SEJJ5nsZEN

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) July 3, 2021

 Economists ― stupid or corrupt or both?

• Fact of life: Your econ prof is scientifically incompetent
• Are economics professors really that incompetent? Yes!
• The GDP-death-blow for the economics profession
• MMT: The fusion of Wall Street and Academia
• How Keynesians, Lernerians, MMTers make the Oligarchy great
• Political fraud and the silence of academia
• Not all academic pursuits are science
• Economics as a cover for agenda-pushing
• Economists, stupid or corrupt or both?
• Too stupid for science
• The tragedy of economics: stupid/corrupt economists
• Yes, economists are really that stupid
• Economics is a disgrace
• Economics is a disgrace ― now more than ever
• Disgrace again ― is economics really that bad?
• How MMT disgraces itself
• Deceiving WeThePeople ― the case of MMT/Bill Mitchell
• Economists: Trolls with a mortarboard
• Economics: Not a pretty story
• On economists’ stupidity
• Economists’ three-layered scientific incompetence
• A bitter pill for political economists
• Economics: The chief demerit is inconsistency
• Incompetence — the original sin in economics
• The overdue public clarification of economics’ actual scientific state

For more about Lars Syll see AXECquery.

For more about the vacuous proclamation of top economists see AXECquery.

Do economists finally wake up from their methodological delirium?

Comment on Lars Syll on ‘Does it — really — take a model to beat a model? No!’

Blog-Reference

Lars Syll maintains: “A more realistic approach needs to be adopted, which means one that is more practical in its methodological assumptions, more comprehensive in its substantive assumptions and more modest in its aims. At minimum, this means adopting an institution and accounting-based approach instead of a strictly axiomatic one. For starters, a stock-flow consistent approach such as advanced by Wynne Godley based on accounting.”

Right. Macroeconomic accounting is the objective-systemic core of economics and NOT some silly behavioral assumption. Methodological rule #1: If it isn't macro-axiomatized, it isn't economics.

Economics is a failed science because the major approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, and their derivatives ― are provably false. This includes Godley’s and Lavoie’s approach. More precisely, Godley’s and Lavoie’s program ― the integrated approach to credit, money, income, production, and wealth ― is basically correct, but at some point, a lethal inconsistency slipped in, and that happened exactly in Section 8.2, page 262, eq. 8.25 (Godley et al., 2007). #1-#5 This blunder carries over to MMT and invalidates it also.

Lars Syll is a bit slow. The Paradigm Shift from false Walrasian microfoundations and false Keynesian macrofoundations to true macrofoundations is an accomplished fact. #6

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Godley, W., and Lavoie, M. (2007). Monetary Economics. An Integrated Approach to Credit, Money, Income, and Wealth. Houndmills, Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

#2 The Common Error of Common Sense: An Essential Rectification of the Accounting Approach

#3 Micro and macro inconsistency

#4 MMT-Refutation for Dummies

#5 MMT: Time to say goodbye

#6 The Paradigm Shift is an accomplished fact

For more about Godley, see AXECquery.

For more about Syll, see AXECquery.

Occasional Tweets: Economists and philosophers ― creatures from the scientific swamp

 

#Economics#FailedScience#Economists#StupidOrCorruptOrBoth

Lawson’s fundamental methodological error and the failure of Heterodoxyhttps://t.co/PcoqB9Xh3B#DefundEconomics #FireEconomists #ScrapTheLot

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) February 8, 2021

Economics and Philosophy

“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)

• Bye, bye economic philosophers
• Dear philosophers, economics is a systems science
• Economics for philosophers
• Lawson’s fundamental methodological error and the failure of Heterodoxy
• The trouble with truth
• If religion is opium of the people, economics is crack of the people
• What’s the use of economists?
• Economics is NOT about what Happiness is but about what Profit is
• Economics, philosophy, and mathematics
• Note on Amy Willis ‘Can majoring in philosophy make you a better person?’
• The economist as moralist
• Economics: Poor philosophy, poor psychology, poor science
• How to stop idiot-breeding
• Poor philosophy, poor science, poor job
• Mental messies and loose losers
• Hijackers, agenda pushers, PsySocs and other morons
• Habermas, Albert, Robinson, Syll are right — now scrap the crap
• Economics — the fly that cannot see the glass
• Beauty or horseshit?
• Economists: scientists or political clowns?
• The indelible scientific disgrace of economics, see Ch. 13 of Sovereign Economics

OMG, after 200+ years, economics becomes a science

Comment on Lars Syll on ‘Studying economics — a total waste of time’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference on Oct 17

Lars Syll argues: “It’s hard not to agree with Elster’s critique of mainstream economics and its practice of letting models and procedures become ends in themselves, without considerations of their lack of explanatory value as regards real-world phenomena. The message writes itself: If you’re really interested about what goes on in our economies — stay away from economics!”

This is correct but misses the point altogether. The lethal defect of economics is that the main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and ALL get the foundational economic concept of profit wrong.#1 Economics is a heap of proto-scientific garbage. Because of this, economic policy guidance NEVER has had sound scientific foundations. With regard to scientific content, there is NO difference between left/center/right policy.

So, there is NO such thing as a choice between bad Orthodoxy and good Heterodoxy. Heterodoxy, too, gets profit wrong. As a consequence, both Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy have to be buried for good at the Flat-Earth-Cemetery.#2 What is needed is a new Paradigm.

Mainstream economics is a waste of time and Lars Syll's brain-dead critique of mainstream economics is also a waste of time: “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) In methodological terms: it takes a Paradigm Shift.

The good news for scientists and the bad news for time wasters is that the Paradigm Shift is an accomplished fact. See the new textbook Sovereign Economics.#3

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?

#2 Let's bury economics now

#3 Sovereign Economics, Amazon.de, BoD, etc.

Related 'After 200+ years even economics becomes a science' and 'Who is really a scientist?' and 'Links on “Capitalism. Time for a reset.”'

Let's bury economics now

Comment on Lars Syll on ‘Michael Woodford on models’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference Aug 14

Lars Syll argues against Michael Woodford: “This is — sad to say — a rather typical view among mainstream economists today. Defending the use of unrealistic and unsubstantiated models with the argument that models make it ‘easy for others to see what assumptions have been relied upon, and hence to challenge them’ is rather far-fetched.”

Yes, “unrealistic and unsubstantiated models” are indefensible. Yes, mainstream economics is proto-scientific garbage. Yes, mainstreamer are in the “story-telling business”.#1

Yes, yes, yes. All this is known for 150+ years. Yes, economics is failed/fake science. Yes, economists are stupid or corrupt or both. Yes, this applies in equal measure to Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. It applies to economics in general and to Lars Syll, in particular.#2

The most important thing to realize is that there are theoretical economics and political economics. Theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers). Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years. Economic policy NEVER has had sound scientific foundations.

Both orthodox and heterodox economists are NOT scientists but clowns and useful idiots in the political Circus Maximus.#3, #4

The representative economist does not understand to this day what science is all about. So, here are eleven plain facts about ‘economic sciences’

1. Science manifests itself in the form of the true theory. 2. Truth is well-defined by material and formal consistency. 3. Logical consistency is secured by applying the axiomatic-deductive method and material consistency is secured by applying state-of-the-art testing. 4. The true theory/model is the humanly best mental representation of reality. 5. “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.” (Aristotle, 300 BC)  6. The main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent and all got the foundational economic concept of profit wrong. 7. Because the foundations are false the analytical superstructure is false. 8. Economists are too stupid for elementary algebra. 9. Both orthodox and heterodox economics is failed/fake science. 10. Economic policy has no sound scientific foundations. 11. The EconNobel for ‘economic sciences’ is a fraud.

And this is the cause of the mess: economists have since the founding fathers consistently violated the separation of science and politics. In hashtags

#LawOfTheExcludedMiddle

#TheScientistIsNoActivist

#TheActivistIsNoScientist

#PoliticsCorruptsScience.

All this is known and needs no repetition. The consequence is: Economics and economists go directly to the Flat-Earth-Cemetery.

What next? Craig thinks he has a brilliant idea: “Paradigms, especially extremely relevant and urgently needed new paradigms are everything.” Yes, this is also known for a long time: “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)

Except that the Paradigm Shift from provably false Walrasian microfoundations and provably false Keynesian macrofoundations to true macrofoundations is an accomplished fact.#5

And now, Lars Syll and all the other agenda-pushers/activists lead your own funeral cortege!

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 The economist as storyteller (II)

#2 Lars Syll is refuted on all counts. See blog query for details

#3 The tragedy of economics: stupid/corrupt economists

#4 Economics: The greatest scientific fraud in modern times

#5 Sovereign Economics BoD

Related 'Separation of politics and economics'.

***

AXEC136g

The tragedy of economics: stupid/corrupt economists

Comment on Lars P. Syll/Tom Hickey on ‘On war and economics’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference

Lars Syll argues: “Models may help us think through problems. But we should never forget that the formalism we use in our models is not self-evidently transportable to a largely unknown and uncertain reality. The tragedy with mainstream economic theory — and the ‘theorists’ that Clausewitz criticised — is that it thinks that the logic and mathematics used are sufficient for dealing with our real-world problems.”

The tragedy with Lars Syll is that he still thinks that mainstream economics is science. Time to take notice that economics is NOT science and never has been. Economics is proto-scientific garbage for 200+ years. Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, Pluralism are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent. Economics is cargo cult science.

What Lars Syll sells as his grand methodological insight is a truism among genuine scientists and well-known among methodologists: “We are very far from being able to predict, even in physics, the precise results of a concrete situation, such as a thunderstorm, or a fire.” (Popper) Or a war, for that matter.

And, guess what, already J. S. Mill was well aware of the methodological situation: “Since, therefore, it is vain to hope that truth can be arrived at, either in Political Economy or in any other department of the social science, while we look at the facts in the concrete, clothed in all the complexity with which nature has surrounded them, and endeavour to elicit a general law by a process of induction from a comparison of details; there remains no other method than the à priori one, or that of ‘abstract speculation’.”

This means nothing more than that figuring out how the economy works requires a certain amount of abstraction. And here is exactly the point where economists in their bottomless methodological incompetence failed. Their blunder is known as Fallacy of Insufficient Abstraction.

The philosopher Tom Hickey hallucinates about science: “Science works quite well and consistently in dealing with physical matters, and fairly well in dealing with biological matters — other than psychology. But the record is not so good with social matters.”

The record is not so good with social matters because so-called social scientists are NOT scientists but stupid/corrupt political agenda pushers. Economists are even too stupid for the elementary algebra that underlies macroeconomics. The fact of the matter is, that economists do not know to this day what profit — the foundational concept of their subject matter — is.#3

To cover the scientific failure of economics with ontological and epistemological wish wash is the personal disgrace of Lars Syll and Tom Hickey within the general scientific disgrace of economics.#4

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Scientists do NOT predict the future

#2 Shocking: methodology is a tricky business

#3 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?

#4 Economics is a disgrace ― now more than ever

Related 'Failed economics: The losers’ long list of lame excuses' and 'Macroeconomics: Economists are too stupid for science' and 'Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing'. For details of the big picture see cross-references Failed/Fake Scientists

Bye, bye economic philosophers

Comment on Lars Syll/Tom Hickey on ‘The capital controversy’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference

What the Cambridge Capital Controversy has proven is that both orthodox and heterodox economists are NOT scientists but brain-dead political agenda pushers. #1, #2

With regard to the CCC, Tom Hickey maintains: “From the perspective of a philosopher, this is a good illustration of why philosophy of economics and philosophy of science, which focus on clarification of concepts, is foundational to the discipline.”

Sort of, but the brute fact of the matter is that neither economists nor philosophers have clarified the foundational economic concept of profit.

Because of this, economics is a scientific failure. Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, and Pluralism are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/ formally inconsistent. #3

Not only the representative economist has proven to be scientifically incompetent ― actually, too stupid for elementary algebra ― but also the self-styled philosophers of science. #4, #5

It is a remarkable fact that the champions of scientific methodology never stumbled upon the plain fact that profit is ill-defined, except perhaps for Mirowski: “... one of the most convoluted and muddled areas in economic theory: the theory of profit.”

So, as economics currently goes down the scientific toilet, let us by no means forget the philosophers of science.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 The CCC ― a monument of economists’ utter scientific incompetence

#2 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?

#3 Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing

#4 How incompetent are economic methodologists? Very!

#5 Economics, philosophy, and the crapification of science

***

REPLY to Matt Franko on Sep 3

You say: “It’s not foundational to Economics its foundational to Accounting.”

There is microeconomic accounting and macroeconomic accounting. Macroeconomic profit is foundational to economics because economics is about how the economy works. #1

To think one can understand the economy by studying the mom-and-pop store is known as the Fallacy of Composition. It is a bit like trying to understand the universe by studying a molehill in the backyard.

#1 Profit

***

REPLY to Matt Franko on Sep 3

You say: “It [accounting] has been ignored (espec.in macro) with a few exceptions (Lerner, Minsky, Godley, Lavoie, Bezemer, and Keen, among a very few others). ”

Accounting is elementary algebra; however, economists don't get it to this day. MMTers are no exception. Here is the proof

Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?

Yes, economists incl. MMTers and philosophers of science fail the intelligence test already at the entry level.

MMT Basics

Comment on Lars Syll on ‘MMT basics’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference on Jul 8

• The counterfeiter never runs out of money.
• The counterfeiter never stops stealing stuff from the rest of society.
• The counterfeiter increases the profit of the business sector with his additional demand.
• The counterfeiter says that he is good for the economy and employment.
• When the economy breaks down, the counterfeiter increases deficit spending/ money creation.
• The counterfeiter 'solves' any problem from unemployment to pandemics to global warming with deficit spending/money creation.
• The counterfeiter continuously increases the public debt but says that it does not matter.
• The counterfeiter is a criminal but never gets caught because he games the fiat money system from within.#1, #2, #3
• The counterfeiter gets valuable PR support from academia, in particular from the MMT fake science trolls.#4

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Criminals and the monetary order
#2 MMT sucks
#3 Cross-references MMT
#4 The sectoral balances obfuscation: stupidity or corruption?

***

AXEC152

The problem with economics as a discipline

Comment on Lars Syll/Tom Hickey on ‘Economics — too important to be left to economists’*

Blog-Reference

Tom Hickey maintains: “The problem with economics as a discipline, and this generally includes all forms of economics including heterodox economics to some extent, is ‘economics.’ That is is to say, economists assume that economics is chiefly or exclusively about economic behavior when economic behavior is embedded in social and political behavior and includes the entire ‘human condition.’ The only ‘economist’ that really grasped this in depth was Karl Marx, and he was a philosopher coming from a Hegelian background rather than being an ‘economist’ in today’s terminology.”

This is a typical Hickey-hallucination. He overlooks that J. S Mill was quite explicit about economic methodology: “What is now commonly understood by the term ‘Political Economy’ is not the science of speculative politics, but a branch of that science. It does not treat of the whole of man’s nature as modified by the social state, nor of the whole conduct of man in society. It is concerned with him solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, and who is capable of judging the comparative efficacy of means for obtaining that end. It predicts only such of the phenomena of the social state as take place in consequence of the pursuit of wealth. It makes entire abstraction of every other human passion or motive; except those which may be regarded as perpetually antagonizing principles to the desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labour, and desire of the present enjoyment of costly indulgences.” and “Not that any political economist was ever so absurd as to suppose that mankind are really thus constituted, but because this is the mode in which science must necessarily proceed.”

So, the triviality that economic behavior is embedded in the entire ‘human condition’ was certainly known to economists long before the philosopher Marx came along. On the other hand, the philosopher Marx never understood how the monetary economy works. Marx got profit and exploitation wrong and because of this, the whole analytical superstructure of Marxianism has no sound scientific foundations. #1, #2 This does not matter for politics, though, because in the whole history of mankind, politics NEVER depended on scientific insights but on beliefs of obvious socio-pathological quality. Obvious, for an emotionally detached clinical observer, that is.

The common methodological blunder of both J. S. Mill and Marx consisted of the rather commonsensical belief that economics is about human behavior, i.e., that economics is a social science. NO, economics is NOT a social science but a systems science, and the system is NOT the social system but the economic system. #3 It was Niklas Luhmann who put sociology on systemic foundations. #4 The economic system, on the other hand, is an ABSTRACT entity that is defined by the objective relationships of economic variables, e.g., employment, output, income, profit, saving, wealth, etcetera. Nobody can see or touch or smell ‘the economy’ or deduce its functioning by observing individual/social behavior.

The problem of economics is to this day that economists waffle about Human Nature/motives/behavior/action, which is NOT their subject matter but have NO idea what profit, i.e., the foundational magnitude of their subject matter, is. Neither J. S. Mill nor Marx had any idea of the macroeconomic Profit Law. And things have not improved with Keynes, MMT, Lars Syll, or Tom Hickey. #5

The problem with economics as a discipline is that economics is NOT a science, and economists are NOT scientists but clowns/useful idiots/agenda-pushers in the political Circus Maximus. Most of them are directly or indirectly on the payroll of the Oligarchy. J. S. Mill was for the better part of his life an employee of the East India Company; Marx was sponsored by the Capitalist Engels. To present Marx as a philosopher, by the way, is a bit euphemistic. He was a journalist, which, in turn, is a euphemism for propagandist or, in modern parlance, troll. #6

Economics is a fake science, beginning with Econ 101, textbooks, the peer-review process, methodology, the history of economic thought #7, and the EconNobel. Marxians have always been an integral part of the greatest scientific fraud in modern times.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


* Lars P. Syll Blog
#1 Marx and Marxists ― too stupid for the elementary algebra of profit
#2 Links on Karl Marx
#3 Cross-references NOT a Science of Behavior
#4 See on Amazon Social Systems
#5 Lars Syll, MMT, and the other failures of New Economic Thinking
#6 Marx started as editor-in-chief of the Rheinische Zeitung “ein von der preussischen Regierung gefördertes Unternehmen” [an enterprise sponsored by the Prussian government]. For more details, see Waldner, Kindle edition, p. 45 ff. Later, he wrote for the New York Tribune and other bourgeois newspapers.
#7 Macroeconomics and the fake History of Economic Thought

Related 'ASSA2020 has been a success ― sorta kinda' and 'Circus Maximus: Economics as entertainment, personality gossip, virtue signaling, and lifestyle promotion'.

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REPLY to Matt Franko on Jan 13

You say: “They’re not clowns they are operating as typical Liberal Art trained people... ie Thesis + AntiThesis = Synthesized Thesis”

Education is a serious problem, but not the most important one. The lack of scientific integrity is the primary problem of economics. #1, #2

There is no difference between Mainstream and Heterodoxy in this regard, and MMT is no exception. #3 Economics is one large swamp. #4

To recall, economics is about the economy and NOT about economists. That academic economics is rotten is a problem for science policy and NOT for economics.

So let us do economics: which of the two sectoral balances equations is true

(a) (I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M)=0

(b) (I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M)−(Q−Yd)=0?

Who cannot answer this question is out of economics, no matter what his formal education was.


#1 There is NO such thing as “smart, honest, honorable economists”
#2 Feynman Integrity, fake science, and the econblogosphere
#3 Stephanie Kelton: “All deficits are good for someone” Yes, Someone=Oligarchy
#4 Getting out of the economics swamp

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Graphic AXEC109i

Lars Syll, MMT, and the other failures of New Economic Thinking

Comment on Lars Syll/Tom Hickey on ‘Does it — really — take a model to beat a model?’*

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference

Lars Syll is in a trap. He is known as a sharp refuter of orthodox economics and one tends to think that if he knows what is wrong with Orthodoxy he would eventually come up with something better. This is NOT the case. During his whole career, Lars Syll never came up with any insights into how the actual economy works. He does not even acknowledge that this is his duty as a scientist and academic teacher.

“A critique yours truly sometimes encounters is that as long as I cannot come up with some own alternative model to the failing mainstream models, I shouldn’t expect people to pay attention. This is, however, to totally and utterly misunderstand the role of philosophy and methodology of economics!”

No, dear critics of Heterodoxy, Lars Syll does not suffer from the hubris to create a superior economic theory, he is merely a humble under-labourer like John Locke: “’tis Ambition enough to be employed as an Under-Labourer in clearing Ground a little, and removing some of the Rubbish, that lies in the way to Knowledge.”

How can anyone be so absurd as to think that the self-defined task of scientists is to contribute to the growth of scientific knowledge? In fact, it comes from methodologists, Lars Syll’s colleagues: “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)#1-#4

And this is the trap the under-labourer is in: he has no new theory. However, Lars Syll cannot admit failure and so he quotes Jo Michell approvingly: “It takes a model to beat a model has to be one of the stupider things, in a pretty crowded field, to come out of economics. … I don’t get it. If a model is demonstrably wrong, that should surely be sufficient for rejection. I’m thinking of bridge engineers: ‘look I know they keep falling down but I’m gonna keep building em like this until you come up with a better way, OK?’”

NO, dear methodological imbeciles, surely you can waste your own and everybody else’s time by endlessly repeating that neoclassical economics is rubbish, but take notice that this is known already for a long time and NOT any longer the key issue: “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)

Here is the real crux of the matter: “... we may say that the ... omnipresence of a certain point of view is not a sign of excellence or an indication that the truth or part of the truth has at last been found. It is, rather, the indication of a failure of reason to find suitable alternatives ...” (Feyerabend)#5, #6

What gets entirely lost in the Syll/Michell smoke-blowing exercise is that Heterodoxy, too, is rubbish. Lars Syll is a proponent of Keynes and the Post-Keynesians including MMT. He has not realized to this day that Keynes messed up the Paradigm Shift from microfoundations to macrofoundations.#7 So, Lars Syll is NOT merely a humble under-labourer but an active participant in the scientific failure of economics.

Nobody believes in earnest that folks like Lars Syll, Tom Hickey, Jo Michell, Stephanie Kelton, Bill Mitchell, etcetera have any ambition to come up with a scientifically valid new economic theory/model.#8 What they have produced this far proves that they are stupid/corrupt under-labourers of the Oligarchy or, in the metaphor of John Locke “Rubbish, that lies in the way to Knowledge”.#9

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


* Lars P. Syll Blog
#1 Caught in secular intellectual stagnation
#2 Unfit in all dimensions
#3 Throwing soap bubbles at time wasters
#4 Complexity, scientific incompetence, and the art of asking the right questions
#5 How Heterodoxy keeps the Naked-Emperor-Zombie alive
#6 Economics is a scientific zombie waiting to be put down
#7 Get it econ suckers: behavioral microfoundations ⇒ false, systemic macrofoundations ⇒ true
#8 “The highest ambition an economist can entertain who believes in the scientific character of economics would be fulfilled as soon as he succeeded in constructing a simple model displaying all the essential features of the economic process by means of a reasonably small number of equations connecting a reasonably small number of variables. Work on this line is laying the foundations of the economics of the future …” (Schumpeter, 1946)
#9 Economists: scientists or political clowns?

Trust in science? Yes, but economics is NOT a science

Links on Lars Syll on ‘Public trust in economists’*

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference on Dec 13

When things get serious, there is NO In-God-We-Trust. Everybody trusts in science even religious people who reject science as too rational, incomprehensible, abstract, limited, or emotionally unsatisfactory. Every time priests of whatever denomination#1 board an aircraft or undergo surgery they practically admit that they trust more in science than in their particular faith.

It is quite natural#2 and unavoidable that sooner or later science look-alikes appear that exploit the prestige/authority of science. This is pretty much like counterfeiters who exploit the difference between the purchasing value of money and the material value of the money token. Fake is profitable.

Look-alike scientists produce cargo cult science: “They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. ... But it doesn’t work. ... So I call these things cargo cult science because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential.” The general public cannot recognize the difference between science and cargo-cult science.

Economics is a cargo cult science. More precisely, there are political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.

The fact is that (i) theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers), and (ii), political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years. Economics started as Political Economy and never got above the proto-scientific level.

As a result, economics does NOT deserve the trust that science has rightfully earned for over 2300+ years. On the contrary. Economists are NOT scientists but agenda pushers and they deserve all the contempt for cheaters, clowns, confused confusers, and useful idiots in the political Circus Maximus.#3-#16

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


* Lars P. Syll Blog
#1 Wikipedia Priest
#2 Wikipedia Mimicry
#3 What is so great about cargo cult science? or, How economists learned to stop worrying about failure
#4 Economics and scientific foolishness
#5 Economics: The greatest scientific fraud in modern times
#6 Macroeconomics: Economists are too stupid for science
#7 There is NO such thing as “smart, honest, honorable economists”
#8 Economics: ‘a tale told by an idiot ... signifying nothing’
#9 There is NO such thing as an economic expert
#10 Economists cannot do the simple math of profit — better keep them out of politics
#11 Economics as storytelling and entertainment for the masses
#12 Trust in economics as a science?
#13 Lars Syll ― a particularly stupid/corrupt fake scientist
#14 Cryptoeconomics ― the best of Lars Syll’s spam folder
#15 Feynman Integrity, fake science, and the econblogosphere
#16 The economist as storyteller

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Source: Lars P. Syll Blog