Re: Relevant is Pragmatism not Physics

["Gunnar Tomasson" <tomasson@xxxxxxxx>]

John:

Absent clarity on first principles, "pragmatism" in economics, as in
physics, is PR for muddled thinking.

For, as Einstein wrote in 1949:

"Science without epistemology is - insofar as it is thinkable at all -
primitive and muddled."

Keynes never suggested otherwise.

Gunnar



----- Original Message -----
From: John Gelles <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>
To: Post Keynesian Thought <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: 1944 <1944@xxxxxxxx>; Gunnar Tomasson <tomasson@xxxxxxxx>; Jonathan D
Halvorson <jdh11@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 12:15 AM
Subject: Relevant is Pragmatism not Physics


>             Would you prefer to be the "intellectual" heir to
>             Keynes' insights, or their "political" heir?
>
>             In recent days while, formal economics is being
>             debunked, some have been concerned with the
>             possibility of creating economic algorithms that
>             might serve a long period of future time. The
>             past suggests to me this cannot be done.
>
>             There are just too many factors and too little
>             known of past economic performance for a
>             sufficient set of rules to be discovered from
>             which to construct such reliable algorithms.
>
>             I think this obvious constraint on students of
>             political economy was presented by Keynes
>             in his own words;  and, accordingly, all
>             pragmatic thinking, including Keynes', is
>             kin and heir to Pierce, James and Dewey's
>             pragmatism.  Physics has nothing to say in the
>             matter.
>
>             Now, to be political heir to Keynes you must
>             want to attack poverty, unemployment and
>             depression with spending.  And you must want
>             to prevent hyper-inflation with saving and taxes
>             not unemployment and poverty -- and certainly
>             not with anti-democratic styles socialism.
>
>             What then would be the opposite of an algorithm
>             that, nevertheless, remained recognizably Keynesian?
>             What is the pragmatic form of advice to build and
>             maintain a monetary systerm of production ahead
>             of a fully engineered economy?  Is it suggested in
>             any of the projects on-going on PKT?
>
>             Is it closely related to soft currency economics?
>             To balancing price stability and higher wages?
>             To a better understanding of wage inequalities?
>             To an inflation protected individual estate account
>             in support of heavy government spending on all the
>             things still needed after private spending has done
>             its best?  I say its the last of these.
>
>             And since pragmatism and democracy must be
>             willed by the majority of voters, it will not hurt
>             to aim some ideas at them.
>
>
>                 John Gelles
>                  email    1944@xxxxxxxx
>                      url    http://1944.org
>
>
>
>
>