Re: Post Keynesian Axioms versus Real Economies

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

            Although all opinion in a modern language allows
            reasoning from the general to the particular, and
            many people will argue that high interest rates lead
            to business failure and unemployment, (a deduction
            from unstated major premises implied by any
            opinion today predicting a future condition), we
            know that such logical deduction will often not be
            in agreement with related future observations of
            failures and employment.

            No doubt inductive logic allows use of deduction
            when major premises are proved to be reliable.

            But the idea that we need a foundational premise
            (or major axiom), that economic performance takes
            place in the uncertain universe of events, is a stone
            in the gears that allow induction to guide our
            knowledge of how to make money work to
            reduce poverty, pollution, and rage.

            Money is an evolving tool, as is price, and all
            the engineering we recognize as essential to a
            monetary system of production. The approach
            to arithmetic, another tool we use, that sought
            to limit it to a closed system of axioms, (sought
            by Russell and denied by Godel), had little
            importance to the development of such ideas
            as two's complement arithmetic that allowed
            calculation in silicon machines to offer our
            monetary system of production potentials never
            dreamed of by Smith, Marx or Keynes.

            My point is to allow ad hoc and inductive
            systems to support our search for tools to
            bring economic performance up to par --
            relative to the values we share.

            This weeks events (Saylor's free internet
            university proposal, and Joy's caution
            concerning nano-technology, genetic
            engineering, and robotics) speak to us in
            a "thing" language. Behind them is the power
            of abstract thought -- but suitably tamed
            to be useful. In Barbara Tuchman's account
            of Stillwell in China, she remarks of the
            Chinese Mandarins who had assured the
            "triumph of form over substance".

            I fear for economic instruction that succumbs
            to a similar fate. Professor Paul Davidson is
            NOT the target of this concern.  He is more
            open to ad hoc and inferential rules than most
            advisors to the body politic. But he does
            spend time on texts that, if the whole world
            learned them by heart, would make no
            difference.

            The problems the "new economy" faces,
            such as bubbles and disparity in wealth,
            are not in need of agreement on the non-
            ergodic axiom (or its relevance).  These
            problems, together with the major
            problems of poverty, pollution, and wars
            (economic and/or bloody), require
            Keynesian money if the bubbles burst,
            tax reform for effective political action,
            and enormous study and effort in such
            fields as conflict resolution and detente.

            There will be little by way of a closed
            axiomatic foundation to help us. The open
            use of common language, common sense
            and common courtesy, are called for in all
            matters of political economy above the
            level of the competitive firm chasing
            private gain.

        John Gelles
         email    1944@xxxxxxxx
             url    http://1944.org



----- Referenced Prior  Message -----
From: Gunnar Tomasson <tomasson@xxxxxxxx>
To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 1:21 PM
Subject: Re: Post Keynesian Axioms versus Real Economies


Re. the following:

>
>             There will be great and profound discussions of
>             values and tools. There will be little to suggest
>             that a closed logical system can yield by deduction
>             the kernel of what we need to know.
>

Algebra and analytic geometry exemplify "closed logical systems".

A would-be mathematical scholar would never get to first base without
mastering the essentials of whatever "closed logical system" pertains to his
field of interest.

By 1911, when he published 'Theory of Economic Development', Schumpeter had
come to the like conclusion with respect to the sine qua non of would-be
economic scholars.

Ditto for Keynes in his 1922 definition of "the theory of economics" as
"apparatus of the mind" and, earlier, for Marshall who defined theoretical
economics as "an engine of analysis".

In the 1840s, John Stuart Mill wrote that economics science would NOT be
completed until its would-be practitioners had arrived at a satisfactory
"theory of mind".

John, on what "theory of mind" - if any - do you predicate your proposition?

Gunnar