tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post8961582186951037791..comments2024-03-28T02:00:36.854-04:00Comments on The Slack Wire: Anti-MankiwJW Masonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-46047931445955432692011-11-21T23:33:37.637-05:002011-11-21T23:33:37.637-05:00Mike, thanks. Both for the Foley and for the INET ...Mike, thanks. Both for the Foley and for the INET series, which is exactly the sort of thing one hoped they would do.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-65702250183408232212011-11-21T22:13:39.182-05:002011-11-21T22:13:39.182-05:00FYI, here's Duncan Foley on teaching intro mac...FYI, here's Duncan Foley on teaching intro macro without AS-AD (and the syllabus) at INET, which has started hosting alternative syllabi (departing to varying degrees from the mainstream):<br /><br />"The syllabus deviates from the standard Introduction to Macroeconomics course primarily in framing the issues in terms of economic history and the history of economic thought, and emphasizing institutions complementary to theories. I personally find the widely-adopted “AD-AS” framework for teaching macroeconomics intellectually fallacious and ideologically loaded, so I try to stay away from it."<br /><br />http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet/professors-share-their-experience-teaching-intro-economics<br /><br />And INET's 'Imagining a new intro economics':<br />http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet/imagining-new-intro-economicsMike Beggshttp://scandalum.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-82498563831466331072011-11-17T20:14:25.417-05:002011-11-17T20:14:25.417-05:00I like the Godley and Lavoie book but I don't ...I like the Godley and Lavoie book but I don't think it's a substitute text, especially not for beginners, because you really need to be comfortable with at least the basics of macro - even the simplest model there has 12 equations and it assumes knowledge of the meanings and interrelationships between basic terms like 'income', 'flow', 'stock'. Stephen Kinsella has an honest account of teaching with this book as text here: http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/showcase/kinsella_pblMike Beggsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-6242099835192185592011-11-17T13:44:13.053-05:002011-11-17T13:44:13.053-05:00@Josh
But without a rival “closed axiomatic syste...@Josh<br /><br />But without a rival “closed axiomatic system” to oppose to mainstream economists’ closed axiomatic system, left economists don’t have a compelling intellectual basis to challenge mainstream economics root and branch, especially since the latter is successful in many contexts and really does still constitute the tacit starting point of left criticisms of it. That means left economists are pretty much relegated to being a dissident faction within the larger universe of mainstream economics.<br /><br />So you’re doomed to taking potshots at Mankiw. But is that really so unworthy a project? The left arsenal is still a formidable one. It can deploy the psychological realism of Keynesian and behavioral economics to oppose rational-actor dogmas. It can mount empirical demonstrations of the failure of mainstream orthodoxies in many contexts. It can show how politically organized elites bias the economy in favor of the rich. It can build a pragmatic case for vigorous state regulation and intervention in many aspects of the economy.<br /><br />Come to think of it, why can’t you collate all of that into a standard textbook that synthesizes it with mainstream economics? And why can’t that textbook make left economics the dominant faction of mainstream economics? I’m kind of surprised to hear that there isn’t already a textbook or three like that. I bet you could write one—do-it-yourself counterhegemony!<br /><br />But then, a textbook like that might suggest an agenda of social democratic reform instead of revolutionary upheaval, which may be too dull a prospect to interest radical economists…Will Boisvertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-62294150426265662552011-11-16T20:09:25.460-05:002011-11-16T20:09:25.460-05:00Hi NKlein,
Randy Wray at UMKC teaches macro with ...Hi NKlein,<br /><br />Randy Wray at UMKC teaches macro with <i>The General Theory</i> as his primary textbook. It's an appealing idea, but it's asking a lot from students. You'd have to be an exceptionally good teacher (as I've heard Wray is) or have students with a significant background in economics already to pull it off, I think. I'll be very interested to see their textbook. I have the Godley and Lavoie book on my Kindle (thank you, library.nu). I should look at it again. Thanks for the suggestion!JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-81849623789155208112011-11-16T20:02:50.021-05:002011-11-16T20:02:50.021-05:00Hey Tom,
Yes, I've done pretty much exactly t...Hey Tom,<br /><br />Yes, I've done pretty much exactly that. Except I didn't ask them to read Keynes or Minsky. (Next time maybe.) ISLM is the one part of mainstream macro I have no problem with teaching -- it's far from complete, obviously, but it's a good starting point (even if the idea that central bank sets "the money supply" has to have so many caveats piled on it that it's almost invisible.) And yes, the standard AS curve is a useful way to talk about the conflict model of inflation, hysteresis, and the possibility of multiple "natural" rates of unemployment. It's the textbook AD curve that I think needs to be thrown out and replaced with something else. It's not just a rough first approximation, IMO, it's actively misleading & wrong. That and Solow growth models, which I''m not doing at all, but will presumably be unable to avoid forever.<br /><br />But yes, it is definitely possible to add a lot of interesting stuff around the textbook models. So maybe my complaint is exaggerated. Still, I'd like more of a clear consensus. Theory is a language, and languages only work if there's a community of people who speak them the same way. I'd like there to be a usable, let's say left-Keynesian or Post Keynesian language I could teach students in the confidence that if they want to continue with this stuff, they can find other people speaking the same language, and not just a bunch of idiosyncratic private dialects of the dominant language.<br /><br />Will B.,<br /><br />The last paragraph is in reply to you too. Maybe it's too much to ask, but I want a counterhegemony.<br /><br />Still to a large extent you're clearly right. Obviously there is no never going to be an equivalent to the closed axiomatic system at the core of mainstream economics, because real economies (or societies) can't be usefully described in those terms. There are *aspects* of economic behavior that can be usefully formalized, tho, as long as we keep in mind that are formalisms are going to apply over a certain range of contexts. And insofar as economics can be formalized, I think we left or heterodox economists could do much better at finding a common way of doing it. I'd rather see more energy going into that and less into attacking Mankiw, who isn't listening anyway.<br /><br />You are also right to warn against the temptation of imagining that there's a set of institutional mechanisms that permanently solve the political and economic problems with capitalism.<br /><br />justice, equality and fulfillment are problems of politics and morality, not of economics.<br /><br />Very true. But injustice, inequality, and the absence of fulfillment can be more directly linked to economic arrangements, I think. (Altho that's not really what I'm looking for here.)JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-74966490025077365442011-11-16T19:04:28.282-05:002011-11-16T19:04:28.282-05:00Not sure if Wynne Godley and Marc Lavoie's &qu...Not sure if Wynne Godley and Marc Lavoie's "Monetary Economics: An Integrated Approach to Credit, Money, Income, Production and Wealth," is appropriate for an undergraduate econ course, but I've read parts of it and even though it's been a good seven years or so since I took undergraduate econ (using Samuelson's textbook), I found it to be quite comprehensible. Godley's approach of using national accounts data is quite different from most mainstream approaches and I think that may be a way forward for those looking to teach outside of the mainstream paradigm.<br /><br />If you're interested in that approach, Bill Mitchell has a section of his website called "Teaching Models," that i think is pretty similar to what Godley and Lavoie are doing:<br /><br />http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?cat=16NKlein1553https://www.blogger.com/profile/08811576290283538510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-25599123126049589412011-11-16T19:01:24.001-05:002011-11-16T19:01:24.001-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.NKlein1553https://www.blogger.com/profile/08811576290283538510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-19522801341631034562011-11-16T18:49:09.576-05:002011-11-16T18:49:09.576-05:00I hear Bill Mitchell and L. Randall Wray are worki...I hear Bill Mitchell and L. Randall Wray are working on a textbook. The University of Missouri-Kansas City supposedly has a pretty good heterodox economics program. I wonder how they do things over there.NKlein1553https://www.blogger.com/profile/08811576290283538510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-42078008599838161082011-11-16T15:23:48.072-05:002011-11-16T15:23:48.072-05:00@Josh,
The shortcomings you pinpoint in left econ...@Josh,<br /><br />The shortcomings you pinpoint in left economics—all critique, no alternative—may not have a remedy. If after a couple of centuries of trying no one has come up with a coherent, textbook-ready body of left economic doctrine, maybe there is no such beast. The inability of left economists to agree on a consensus account of signal economic developments, even on this noble blog, indicates that none is on the horizon. (The communist economies had a settled doctrine, but it failed.)<br /><br />The left does have a cogent case against mainstream claim that a free-market economy is stable and fair without state intervention. But that argument doesn’t imply an alternative.<br /><br />It may be that mainstream economics is the only coherent, systematic formulation of economic behavior we can come up with, but that it is still inadequate for explaining or correcting crucial phenomena: collective action and coordination problems; mood swings between irrational exuberance and pessimism; persistent inequality and poverty. There are theories that do address those problems, like Keynesianism and behavioral economics, but they qualify and complicate mainstream economics rather than overthrowing it. They suggest state intervention to correct and regulate the free-market economy, rather than novel principles on which to refound the economy.<br /><br />And, probably of necessity, that state action will always be pragmatic rather than systematic—when necessary, lower or raise interest rates, print money, proffer stimulus with deficit financing and government works, raise reserve requirements, buttress confidence with insurance, care for the old and the hungry and the sick; if things really freeze up, simply order the economy into gear fighting fascism or building nuclear power plants. A left economic program has a toolbox of measures to try until problems are fixed, but only a haphazard, disputed and basically anecdotal theory of why or how or when they work.<br /><br />So criticism of the mainstream orthodoxy, along with a pointed analysis of how it serves the interests of the undeserving rich, may be the best you can hope for. The left may have to settle for advocating a regimen of pragmatic state control over the market economy rather than advancing a principled alternative economics to replace it.<br /><br />The more basic problem is that the left envisions an economy whose intrinsic workings produce justice, equality and human fulfillment. The right claims that a free-market economy does intrinsically produce those things. The left—quite correctly—denies that claim and wants a socialist economy that really will deliver them.<br /><br />But maybe that’s barking up the wrong tree. I think that justice, equality and fulfillment are not things that any economy, even a socialist one, can produce from its own internal logic. Only the state can produce them by intervening to regulate the economy and redistribute its fruits, acting on explicitly moralistic principles that are exogenous to any logic of efficient allocation.<br /><br />In other words, justice, equality and fulfillment are problems of politics and morality, not of economics.Will Boisvertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-22973154363303720392011-11-16T09:03:45.069-05:002011-11-16T09:03:45.069-05:00Josh,
You can explain to the students how a liqui...Josh,<br /><br />You can explain to the students how a liquidity trap or interest-inelastic investment function leads to a vertical AD curve. And then explain that this was the basic point of the General Theory--what Krugman calls Depression Economics. And then explain that Keynesian unemployment has nothing to do with 'sticky wages'--which is the misconception currently being taught in graduate schools about Keynes (this all started with Patinkin and Modigliani in the 40s). I have them read Ch. 16(?), "Changes in money wages" to disabuse them of that fairy tale. You might even elaborate a bit and bring in Minsky, whose liquidity trap story is essentially a vertical IS curve due to a present value inversion. You know all this, I'm sure. What should we add? I think the idea of path dependence/hysteresis--there are multiple 'natural' rates or NAIRU's.tom mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06218456457883749242noreply@blogger.com