Peng Chen’s challenge to the RWER Blog
from Robert Locke
“My view of economics is shaped by intellectual storms and historical waves, not by formal training in mainstream economics. Many ideas in evolutionary economics came from my observation of the changing Chinese economy. Comparative history is important for understanding civilization bifurcation: the western mode of division of labor is characterized by labor-saving but resource consuming technologies, such as airy-farming and industrialization, while the Chinese mode of division of labor is characterized by resource-saving but labor consuming technology such as small-scale intensive farming. … I learned a lot from readings in cultural anthropology, biology, psychology, philosophy, and history.” [Interview WEA Newsletter, 3 August 2013]
Peng Chen’s description of how he learned economics would not fit the educational profile of most readers of this blog, and it presents a challenge to those thinking about educational reform in economics.
I have learned a lot about the shortcomings of neoclassical economics from reading this blog but I have learned next to nothing about comparative systems. Yet I yearn for comparisons because all my work as an historian concentrates on comparative histories of non-British- and-US experiences done in the 30 years before I joined this blog. (The End of the Practical Man, 1984; Management and Higher Education Since 1940, 1989; The Collapse of the American Management Mystique, 1996; Management Education, 1998; The Entrepreneurial Shift ,2004; Confronting Managerialism, 2011.), wherein British, French, German, Japanese, and US systems are discussed. When invited to join this blog I presumed it a good opportunity to bring this comparative analysis to the attention of economists in a reformist mood.
And so, I have (in articles in the RWER, “Managerialism and the Demise of the Big Three,” #51, comparing US, German, and Japanese carmaking; “Reassessing the Basis of Economics: From Adam Smith to Carl von Clausewitz,” # 61; “Reform of Finance Education in US Business Schools,” comparing US and France, #58; “Reassessing the Basis of Corporate Business Performance,” comparing US, Japan, Germany, #64; and in posts to this blog, i.e., “Getting Business School Reform Wrong,” “The Wilfully Ignorant,” “An economics that ignores the constitution of the firm lacks verisimilitude,” etc.).
The response has been underwhelming. Why? I think it is attributable to a lack of knowledge about systems other than those in Anglo-Saxonia. Just as I keep my mouth shut when the use of mathematics in economics is being discussed, the bloggers here, from a similar lack of knowledge (languages and a firm footing in foreign history and culture), demur. But if Chen is right, we in Anglo-Saxonian economics, through our ignorance of comparative history and culture, run the risk of having no future, since evolutionary economics and complexity science “are rapidly developing in Japan, Australia, and China,” and elsewhere.
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—— Ugarteche, Puyana and Madi ——
Gerson Lima / Maria Alejandra Madi
Edward Fullbrook and Jamie Morgan
————— Michael Hudson ————–
Maria Alejandra Madi / Jack Reardon
————- Edward Fullbrook ————-
—————— Steve Keen —————–
————— Richard Smith —————
————– Gustavo Marques————
– Victor Beker and Beniamino Moro –
————– Lars Pålsson Syll ————-
—————– Stuart Birks —————-
Edward Fullbrook and Jamie Morgan
———— Armando Ochangco ———-
Shimshon Bichler / Jonathan Nitzan
————— Mauro Gallegati ————–
————— Herman Daly —————-
————— Asad Zaman —————
—————– C. T. Kurien —————
————— Robert Locke —————-
Real-World Economics Review Blog 
Indeed Bob. All seem agreed about the shortcomings of economics yet we see its stature unaffected by even the admitted failures.
The NY Times had an interesting item on Godley http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/business/economy/economists-embracing-ideas-of-wynne-godley-late-colleague-who-predicted-recession.html?src=me&_r=0.
Academic progress relies on either (a) critiques of existing positions that open up the possibility of ‘paradigm shift’, or (b) the comparative technique historians applaud. (a) points to errors of deduction. (b) points by induction to areas that might then be theorized.
It seems neither method appeals to the vast majority of economists today.
We have some intuitions about why this is the case.
The (a) route is difficult because the boundary lines between the axioms of economics and their ideological content and framing have dissolved to the point they can no longer be distinguished. So critique changes from being an intellectual matter to becoming and ideological matter.
The rewards for such critique are slight and the downside professional risks of putting oneself beyond the pale grow.
This state is exacerbated by the obvious fact that the underpinnings of economics are far removed from the everyday empirics of economic life, seriously weakening the possibility of mounting a critique driven by empirical evidence of Kuhnian anomalies.
The entire edifice has become so inward-looking and internally defined that the structure is no longer able to adapt incrementally, but must be brought crashing down by a fairly complete alternative.
The (b) route demands a shift in ideology too. But the more serious impediment is that history is hard work, grubbing about in detail, building up a case line by line, document by document. It is much easier to think of intellectual work as dredging data-bases and running regressions, from the comfort of one’s office computer.
How about judging knowledge systems by their NOT omitting basic data, such as these data:
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1223928
“The public’s right to know” — Ho, Ho, Ho!
To understand what follows please refer back to:
[1] # 60, Rethinking Keynes’ non-Euclidean theory of the Economy, Aug. 18, 2013
[2] It’s the Math Again, # 18 & # 27 [especially relevant]
[3] Mathematical Modelling in Economics, #22
[4] The Keynes Solution, # 10
The saddest & most futile thing about stuff like this are It’s two “hidden axioms” [consult J.S. Mill in his role of logician] [1] Such musings are “new thinking”: And [2] The history of the future is predictable by mortals, providing they can find the right math. It all amounts to a resurrection of GEMATRIA. A Hebrew word derived directly from an ancient Greek one. Meaning divination by numbers; or the decryption of hidden codes in ancient writings. Whether it be “chaos theory”, Complexity theory, or some other feat of the mathematical or poetic imagination that no one else presumably ever thought of; such “new” versions of an old gross secular superstition must be la creme de la crème of pseudo-scientific prognosis.
The interested reader should find Clive Granger’s efforts, #27 above to be especially relevant.
Especially his conclusions about the LIMITS to predictability from time series; Or “Granger]
predictability” ..which does not necessarily lead to control; Like massaging the “future” YOU don’t want, into the one YOU do want. Regardless of your ‘noble’ or ‘altruistic motivations, [e.g. perfect distribution of wealth, perfect equality, planned economic ‘progress’ or utopian social justice ]….which may not be ‘shared’ by the rest of us. The pursuit of such deterministic “futures” usually leads to a vindication of Voltaire’s ‘general pattern prediction’: “Those who believe in absurdities will commit atrocities”.
Granger’s conclusions bear a remarkable similarity to the great Hayek’s teachings about LIMITS to predictability of the consequences of complex human actions: i.e.General Pattern predictability is as [asymptotically ?] good as you’ll ever get.
Ever consider the following simple syllogism guys ? Based on one simple AXIOM:
Mortal [wo]men cannot predict the history of the future. Economic events are part of the history of the future. Therefore we cannot predict Economic history.
What do think is meant by ‘non ergodic’ futures ? Or “Consciousness cannot be computable’
[Roger Penrose] : Or “In the organic COMPLEX of habits and thoughts,which are the substance of an individual’s conscious life, the ECONOMIC interest does not lie isolated & distinct from all other interests”. Thorstein Veblen. Many more examples can be provided. But all those smart fellows were saying the same thing.
Thanks for your patience. Norman L. Roth, Toronto, Canada. Please GOOGLE [1] Economics of Technology, Norman Roth [2]TECHNOS, Norman Roth [3] Origins of Markets, Norman Roth [4] Telos & Technos, Roth
P.S. Wise guys beware! No matter how ” sophisticated” you think you are, Don’t waste your careers on nouveau Gematria. You’ll never be soothsayers.
Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Studies in Comparative World History) [Paperback]
Philip D. Curtin (Author)
The reason for the dominance of Anglo-Saxonian economics is the same as the reason for the dominance of neoclassical economics: not due to intellectual or scientific merit, but due to resource allocation by Anglo-Saxonian economies. To deal with these major economies, the rest of the world is forced to be conversant, at least, with language of their economics.
Resource allocation or research funding is based on excellence as defined by rankings of journals and recognized prizes such as the Nobel Prize. From these criteria follow academic standing, career promotion, research funding, standing of academic institutions, student numbers etc. Once excellence is defined, the path of economics is more or less defined.
Major business and government institutions hire (for practical reasons) from elite universities, explaining the high levels of demand and the exorbitant fees charged from students, who are almost guaranteed of employment on graduation. What the students learnt is almost irrelevant from the job perspective. But once they are in positions of responsibility, their decisions result in the world we see.
Once this world has been set up there is no escaping its vicious logic of entrenchment of the economic paradigm. Attempts at new economic thinking must fail when resource allocation is based on traditional committees of eminent economists who are naturally anxious to protect their own reputations and influences. Even the established way of writing a research paper for publication, with extensive citations of well-known economists, would hinder any radically new thinking from emerging in economics. Most economists are handicapped by their education and their employment.
The way we organize or go about developing economics needs to change in order to be able to create really new content. Much of the heterodox economics of the past, without having their reasons for rejection clearly recorded, gets recycled and rediscovered from one generation to the next, wasting resources and preventing really new thinking from emerging. Heterodox economics needs to unite to present a coherent alternative paradigm, but this idea would be a logical contradiction.
Economics is the only social science in which different schools of thoughts are in ideological conflict with each other. The idea of reformation of economics education and making economics a true science is to remove this ideological conflict. This conflict is not about “use or no use of math modeling” but indeed ideological. Capitalism must not dominate as a model of economic system. Neoclassical economics with its primitive outdated vision of reality and anti-state bias must go away. Foundation of Economics will be grounded on Evolutionary and Institutional economics. Methods of other sciences, such of biology, sociology, psychology, such as observation and classification, with advanced application of logic must be used. Mathematics and physics approach must not dominate foundations of economics. New field – Mathematical Economics must emerge, which will try to model from fields – from individual to social behavior and networks, from market to social solutions, price and non-price solutions, modeling emergence and evolution, etc. Some neoclassical methods can move there, if recognized as realistic and objective. If integrated true science of economics will emerge, there would be no need in Political Economy and even in Development Economics.
This will happen only and if ideological bias towards capitalism is removed from our thinking.
You can compare this (although my personal) vision of Economics as integrated science with Mankiw’s “Principles of Economics” and tell what is true and objective science.
a few comments for what its (not) worth (much, since most people i think are pretty much dogmatically fixated on their assumptions, beliefs, formalism, particular vocabulary and dialect choice—‘my way or the highway’ or ‘standard english’ or ‘political correctness’ ) —
1. i dont know who fullbrook is tho i could google it. I have noticed this ‘heterodox’ site and movement seems to be dominated by professional economists, grad students who want to be professionals, and people in the finance industry, plus a few ‘independent scholar’ types. From my view, it really looks like the heterodox crowd wants tio be ‘the new boss, same as the old boss’ (the WHO, a 60’s band). Or like Luther, who rebeled against the abuses of Catholicism so he could form his own abusive system or which his ‘crew’ or ‘cartel’ would run, it appears one really has one group who wants to displace another group (as colonists did to the indigenous americans).
So the reforms proposed here don’t really look that much better than the Protestant Reformation, or, say, tghe Bolshevik revolution which replaced the abuses of the Czars with their own ‘mo’ better’ system.
The ‘new religiion here seems to center on ‘anti-math’—-in other words rather than writing pages in Econometrica of essentially apllied math (which i think has ‘some’ relation to reality (tho not ‘every’ thing)—the idea is to create a religion like Portestantism—-more stripped down compared to priestly robes and vaticans, and something more down home—-waving words around, generating litter-ture , since it doesn’t require math education and hence is more liekly to become popular, like protestantism .
I personally have no great competence in math (tho some) and nor any ‘dog in that fight’ as to who should know it or its relevance. (For awhile there was a dispute between pure math people and those who basically did computational math—ie replace mathematicians with machines, like automation—-i think Luddites of this sort do have some teritory which isnt going away).
I will add that in biology there was a similar conflict between math and non-math (field biology) types. I knew quite a few ‘field biologists’ who hated theoretical and mathematical biology (which was done by people in offices who maybe had never even been outside, been in rain and mud, nor could identify a tree if they saw one). I was on the theory side (what stu kauffman calls ‘fact free science’) and yet the theorists could in one day write down a set of equations which would capture qualitatively what it took field biologist decades to confirm..
And the same goes for Ping Chen. Note the first paper on his web site is from 1985. (For the mathematically gifted, thats 28 years ago). And its in a book with Ilya Prigogine as editor (noble in physics in the 70’s, who was into statistical mechanics, ergodic theory, etc. and also did economic and other applications).
There’s almost nothing in the ‘heterodox litterature’ which is essentially new compared to applications of complexity/chaos theory going back to the 80’s (except, like field biology, the theories were data free—but then, a whole lot of physics required later experimental confirmation; predictions can be made really quick for theorists, though most cannot be confirmed—–ask von neumann about the elephant’s ears.)
2. Regarding the point of the article, its all well and good to present your ideas and ask for comments or discussion. . If one checks out academic litterature one can see that many people write papers and they often are ignored and unread. People prefer to try to dominate the published litterature, and so instead of wasting time reading anyone else, they just publish their own rubbish.
In some ‘heterodox’ approaches (eg anarchism, libertarian socialism, etc.) the idea that people must Compete for attention so they can be the (rock) star is seen as ‘inneficient’, but possibly there is some truth in the neoclassical view that people act primarily in their own (and maybe relatives or crew’s) self interest.
One can note there are many articles on RWER, and each one seems to have the ‘final solution’. (Norman Roth’s book blurb on amazon claims ‘for the first time’ the equilibrium ideas used in economics are rejected; similar to Columbus who ‘discovered’ america since it was the first time any human had been here—later of course it was decided there were humans here, but they were too ignorant to know it and so had to be Christianized; they didn’t even know the word ‘human’ or even have the basic IQ to know the english language.)
Also there are Many ‘heterodox sites’ (especailly in ecological, leftist, and even rightist and religious based thought—eg check out PEN-L web site, or google Cockshott). (In the past when i read econ, I mostly looked at JEBO and various theoretical / math journals which published stuff on complexity, bounded rationality, etc. Later of course, people like Krugman picked these up (or plagiarized them—ask J Barkely Rosser about that Noble) and put them in AER, JPE, QJE, etc People discover theorems like Columbus discovered continents..
It would be better if people tried to operate like the US congress, US democracy or US talk radio, where everyione gets a chance to say something and then achieve a consensus (eg using some sort of mechanism designed to be free of the Arrow/Condorcet type of paradoxes, though of course these are NP-complete in the infinite (ergodic) limit, which if the universe and life are eternal, we will all reach ‘in the long run’ —-or long tail where a random fluctuation is exceptional (as Tryon/Sakharov sugggested created the universe) and your coin’s next infinite set of flips are all heads, or tails, depending on your libidinal or intellectual interests. ).
3. Deep/ending on how one defines social science, i think there are conflicts there based on ideology. Look at ‘evolutionary psychology’, ‘happiness’ research, ‘the IQ controversies in behavioral genetics, the ‘linguistics wars’ (universal grammarians versus everyone else), sociobiology…. Sociology, anthropology, history may not exactly have quite the most overt states of war, but i think they exist.
People often disagree just to be disagreeable so they can produce their own territory, which they can bequeath to their offspring or crew, race or specie. .
4. The idea that ‘complexity’ economics is not anglo-saxion or whatever (‘western’) seems to be a joke given that even people like Chen got his PhD in the USA at Texas (wghich i guess is why he’s in a Prigogine volume, since he was there also). Chen of course did not claim that his approach is distinctly non-western or asian, just that its practiced there alot.
I think alot of that is practiced in the west too, but unfortuantely people like Mankiw do seem to dominate the mainstream discourse . (I glanced at hiis book, and feel that actually that stuff is good or fine if one can really remember it all—I really only read microeconomics—starting with Arrow and Hahn, moving to SMD and Chen stuff– and have little use for ‘consumer behavior’ or even much of behavioral economics. But viewing Mankiw as the last word in economic theory is like if one taught physics, and dealt only with newton’s laws, and ignored quantum and relativity theory. Its incomplete—-so, say what you want, but you dont have the last word, and if you are selling half a baby, your creative genius should be ignored and censured, and even censored—eg dont buy a mankiw book)
ola.
Ishi,
(Fullbrook is the editor of this blog)
Recently the BBC did a series about the enviable Germans; in one episode its reporter visited the Audi factory at Ingostadt where 35,000 people produce 550,000 vehicles a year, most of which are exported. The firm offers its employees 200 varieties of flex-time employment from which they can choose in order to harmonize work with family and private life. The trade union, IG Metall, in the works councils plays an active part in the participatory scheme of management. Ingostadt has a very low employment rate because of the success of their cars on the international market, and a non-existent strike rate (In France workers lose 10 times more work days due to strike action than in Germany.) Audi is a perfect example of what Peng Chen means by the necessity to balance “social stability and economic efficiency …to achieve sustainable growth.”
One can never know this from reading economics in Anglo-Saxonia because, as J-C Spender notes, in the first thread “the boundary lines between the axioms of economics and their ideological content and framing have dissolved to the point they can no longer be distinguished. So critique changes from being an intellectual matter to becoming an ideological matter.” In Anglo-Saxonian circles of economic orthodoxy the failure to engage in comparative analysis is not the result of intellectual narrow mindedness but ideological blindness.
As for government and business learning from the German way. The pragmatic Chinese have shown a lot of interest in German co-determination; the US very little. As Ken Zimmerman commented in another post about US response to the effort of German automobile companies to introduce works councils into their US plants:
“Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee has been outspoken in opposing any union inroads at the Volkswagen plant, warning that it would undermine his state’s efforts to attract investment. VW has on the other hand agreed not to oppose efforts by the UAW to unionize the plant. Plus some worry it would create pressure to unionize at the BMW plant in Spartanburg, SC, and the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, AL. Along with similar works councils. VW has also been viciously criticized by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and its Center for Economic Freedom for not battling to keep out a union the way that many American companies do. [“From the comments: firms, working councils and the quality of cars in Germany and the USA,” 9 Sept 2013).
This is the point of the blog, learning about economics and the economy, from people from outside Anglo-Saxonia. Would you do me the honor of focusing on that.
Dear Bob!
Regarding:
>, learning about economics and the economy, from people from outside Anglo-Saxonia.
As you know, this is pretty much what I have been trying too for quite some time. I still think that the criticism from Friedrich List is profound. His angle is pragmatic and practical, and not ideological:
“In practice … the introduction of a protective system is generally the result of a war and has nothing to do with theories advanced by economists.” (List, 1837, p. 110)
In my opinion, it is more about learning from other traditions than from other countries, since other traditions also WERE strong and advanced both in Britain and the USA: Most notably British Mercantilism and the ‘American System’ tradition (and the American Institutional tradition). On the latter, see Michael Hudson’s ‘America’s protectionist takeoff: economic theory and politics 1815–1914’ (2010).
The reason why these traditions faded away in Britain and in the USA, is that the elite found the standard theory to suit their interests better. When the time of decline came in Britain (after 1873), the demand for policy changes came and a return to old ways. This brought forward e.g. the British Historical School, which to some degree was designed to extend the rule of the Empire; and the last attempt to reintroduce it in 1932 by Neville Chamberlain was torpedoed by Roosevelt’s ‘Lend-Lease’ terms during WW II. An article by a PIMCO senior staff member in 2004 similarly called for the US to scrap the ‘Cosmopolitan’ tradition and return to ‘the old ways’.
An advanced alternative to the ‘monetary’ of ‘Cosmopolitan’ tradition is the tradition following Friedrich List (“Smith’s school teaches nothing else than the theory of values,”); this is the (realist, ethical and comparative) German Historical School. In my opinion List is still worth reading carefully, mainly because of his philosophical background, living as he was during the high-time of the Idealistic ‘German Renaissance’.
Let me quote an article of mine: “List’s criticism against Smith can be summarised as criticism of his materialism – with reductionism, methodological individualism, and social nominalism as logical results. Furthermore, Smith’s generalisations on that materialistic basis, laid the foundation for abstraction in economics ‘(the ‘Ricardian Vice’); excessive and uncritical reliance on measurement, formalisation and ‘monetarism’ (a ‘theory of exchange values’), which again led to a myopic exclusion of factors of importance, such as institutions, and an understatement of the need for public regulation.”
List argued well that the purpose of this ‘Cosmopolitan’ system was to distract (in his ‘Philadelphia Speech’) from following sound policies and conceal (National System, 1841, p. 368) how the leading countries had climbed the ladder to progress. Furthermore, List has a hilarious description of how lazy academics and politicians just loved a theory that told them to do nothing, since the system was self-regulating; “demands no sagacity … all one had to do was to fold one’s hands.” (List, 1841, p. 356)
Robert Locke—I’m not so sure the Chinese are really or uniformly all that interested in learning from the pragmatic Germans about work councils and such. I have heard there is alot of squalor (slums, extreme air pollution and ecological damage, possibly almost slave labor and sweatshop type conditions, corruption, vast fortune building—robber baronism, land takeovers by corrupt party bosses working with businesses which they often have ownership in) associated with china’s current rapid development . There are also issues such as treatment of the Tibetans (not to mention political freedom).
To me, they look more like the USA in the robber baron era of carnegie, mellon, rockefellor, ford, etc.
I have been interested in ‘ecological economics’ (Herman Daly, Thoreau, Murray Bookchin etc.), which often is out of standard economic discourse (though one can, like Nordhaus, Pigou and others, internalize externalities and hence use standard economics machinery to maximize social welfare and individual utility, etc. to design carbon tax systems, etc) . Hence a German car factory is not all that much my kind of focus, though given cars are pretty much a basic need now for many the german approach seems reasonable. I prefer things like bicycles (something the Chinese used to use alot but they are now turning to cars, and meat, with their new wealth), or car sharing. Also, I’m also interested in ‘cooperatives’ (eg Gar Alperovitz) which are a somewhat extreme variant of ‘workplace councils’. Syndicalism—promoted in the IWW years ago, or by Noam Chomsky—is another such variant, as is the ‘parecon’ model of Hahnel and Albert (see ZNet).
The link by Sergio to the article on the fair economy by Peter Corning (whose books I have thought were quite on point—though I don’t like his giving a nod to Gerson in that article, since Gerson was a dirty political operative in my hearing, for Bush etc.) .
So thats another set of comparative approaches to look at socio-economic life. One can also consider the economies of hunter gatherors or relatively ‘simple’ agricultural economies, as was done by (once marxist) econonomist S Bowles (who was kicked out of Harvard’s econ dept) and also Elinor Ostrom on the ‘commons’ or social norm regulation beyond simple models of utility maximization (a reply in a sense to Garret Hardin’s 60’s article on the tragedy of the commons). There are also the cash alternatives such as the ‘gift economy’ of Mauss and discussed by Graeber.
I personally see these in no way unrelated to the approach of people like Ping Chen (who has been writing since the 80’s on nonequilibrium stuff, which is to me really just a slight modification of standard gerneral equilibrium stuff, just as walking over a cliff is really just a slight modification of walking on a flat road—-you simply perterb the equilibrium a little, add a nonlinearity, which is something easily conceivable and even intuitive. Of course, as has been noted the devil is in the details—-dealing with cliffs is not quite the same as walking on a road, and even the smallest nonlinear perterbation will lead to analytically intractible problems. Keynes was aware of these as was Marshall long ago (and Poincare, etc.) But they are something to Occupy yourself with as an alternative to being stuck in a traffic jam and air pollution, and indeed without considering them likely modern autos wouldn’t exist—i wonder how much math was involved in the development of electricity or cars.
Friday Sept. 13, 2013, Please refer back to # 3 above
Prof. Peng Cheng has his own challenge to contend with. Without issuing any challenges to others. Anyone with an iota of knowledge of the history of economic thought [Refer to Mark Blaug’s classic] would immediately recognize that Dr. Cheng has staggered-off into the miasmic bog of grand- wave theory,or the Higher Gematria: Which addled the brains of so many earlier Economic mega grand-theorizers, from the last half of the 19th century through the first half of the twentieth century.
Who can forget Kondratieff’s “long-waves” ? Much less Kitchin’s “short-waves”? For real aficionados of the soothsayer’s art, I highly recommend Klement Juglar;s “fixed investment”
cycles. Here lies the last word in pseudo scientific mimicry [physics -envy?]. Its acolytes claim to have applied spectral analysis to the black art of cyclical prophecy. Guess what ? They discovered patterns of “oscillations” which disclosed the presence of Juglar cycles in Global GDP “dynamics”. Had enough yet fellas ? Why not investigate the less ambitious but locally practical “Pork cycle”, of Mordecai Ezekiel in the U.S. & Arthur Hanau in Germany. And by the way. How many of you, inclusive of Prof. Cheng, understand the CONTENT of Philip Mirowski’s MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT [1989]? Not just the title or the author’s name. What he debunked beyond recovery was the direct & uncritical application of thermodynamics to economics.The “heart & soul” of Paul Samuelson’s chest-thumping iconic “contribution” to neoclassical economics. Not to mention Stanley Wong’s total gutting of Samuelson’s “Revealed Preference” theory of consumers’ choice. Seems it was nothing more than a tautology. But it got Mr. Wong thrown out of academic economics and into a successful career in corporate law Because he simply [pointed out that Samuelson forgot all about the meaning of time. [In Telos & Technos, the events are the time, & Technological Time is a foundational concept..not old-time wave-cycle theology].
Apparently Dr. Cheng still has a soft spot in his heart for the late Paul Samuelson’s “murky ideas about stability” [Words by Von Neumann & Morgenstern themselves]. Does this include Samuelson’s misadventures in the never-never land of multiple-equilibria & his bizarre application from physical chemistry of Le Chatelier’s “law” ?
No Prof. Cheng. You can’t handle the legitimate role of entropy in Economics the same way
as in physics. Without running into the same reduction ad absurdam that Philip Mirowski figured out. But why would all you sworn haters of what you imagine “neo-classical” economics to be, become so uncritically enamored of some one who has not yet lost faith in some of its most notorious practices ? Norman L. Roth, Toronto, Canada.
Please GOOGLE [1] Technos, Norman Roth [2] Origins of Markets, Norman Roth [3] Telos & Technos, Roth [4] Economics of Technology, Norman Roth
Arno, Thread #9. Thank you! You are right, traditions is a better term than countries because until postWWII various traditions co-existed in several countries. What can knowledge of these traditions that you and List point out mean for reform of economics as a discipline? Not sure, but it might help if people with this knowledge aggressively criticize specific policy formulations of an ideological nature. As for comparative analysis of economic behavior, its might be very useful for us to emphasis how clinging to economic ideologies is the path to self-destruction when evaluating others, especially if they are competitors outstripping us because they were flexible and pragmatic themselves about policy formulations.
Ishi, Thread # 10. About working conditions in China. We certainly have lots of examples of abuses, but I think the Chinese authorities know they are sitting on a social volcano, which can erupt if conditions decline for working people. And sweep the regime away. Some years ago I ran across articles in German publications about Chinese delegations taking an interest in works councils. Here is something recently from the International Metal Working Union that touches on the subject:
” GERMANY: Volkswagen’s world works council gathered 150 participants to an annual meeting on October 27-29 in the German city of Emden. The delegates warmly welcomed labour and management participants from China who attended the meeting for the first time.
In a presentation, the works council member from Shanghai informed the world council of recent improvements in Chinese labour law, which offer workers new rights. About 80 per cent of VW’s 23,000 workers in China are unionized. A works council was set up to discuss among other things collective bargaining and health and safety issues. The Chinese workforce will more than double in the coming years.
IMF general secretary Jyrki Raina and automotive department director Helmut Lense addressed the meeting on IMF’s work on international framework agreements (IFA) and trade union networks. They called Volkswagen a benchmark and an example for other transnational companies.
Several speakers emphasized the need to ensure union presence at a plant under construction in Chattanooga, Tennesee in the U.S. The local business community and Republican politicians have vehemently opposed unionization at the facility which will start production next year and will eventually employ 2,000 workers. Volkswagen’s production facilities around the world are unionized.”
So it seems the ideology of managerialism in the US opposes works councils more than the Chinese authorities do.
Long time no see, but I See why, yet again. If it seemed to me that “economics” of any kind had a chance to attain or retain any relevance, I’d ask if this is the right time & place to seriously discuss Max-Neef’s “Economics Unmasked” with comparative analysis of the works of Leopold Kohr & Ivan Illich. Yet, it seems that none of those three were prophetic enough to realize how much farther down we’d all fall. I’d be encouraged by Jared Diamond’s latest work, The Way it Was Before Yesterday, but the facts and the map of nukes accompanying the following article seem to make all discussions of economics much mooter than moot. http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/miami-brink-nuclear-disaster-7
If anyone in “economics” was busy creating the criteria & methodology for a global True Cost Pricing system with cradle-to-cradle whole life-cycle benefit/cost analysis or anything else equally important, then I might not be so pessimistic. Yet, the “best” of professional economists still seem driven to stay too close to the circled wagons — or is it the Gravy Train? If it’s not the latter factor, here’s a FREE suggestion for a Noble prize:
Quantify the benefits of all the nukes on the planet melting down over the next 40 years.