Reply to Ralph (was the mind of Paul Krugman)

[Jurriaan Bendien <quark19591@xxxxxxxxx>]

I don't have any disquisition or medical charts, and I was born in 1959. If you care to know, I would say my impression is that modern leftwing thought has the following main lacunae:

1) the organisational structure of modern business is often not well understood, so that not infrequently analogies are drawn with capitalist behaviour in Marx's time which don't really apply.

2) the quantitative dimension of economic problems is often not empirically investigated, despite the availability of a wealth of data sources, so that the relative significance of different kinds of problems is not well understood

3) little attempt is made to form a theory of a feasible socialist economy based on a realistic theory of socialist justice (or ethics), that could inspire positive alternatives to the ruling economic policies.

4) The economic significance of taxation, and its political significance for the "social contract", isn't well-theorized.

5) The advantages and disadvantages of allocation of resources via markets are often not clearly theorized; often one gains the impression that leftwingers think all markets are bad, and that all market economy is incompatible with social planning (despite more sophisticated analyses offered by such authors as Lange and Brus).

Jurriaan

 

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