Stephen Marglin Heterodox Economics: Alternatives to Mankiw’s Ideology
Occupy Harvard Teach-In #1 12/7/2011 “Heterodox Economics: Alternatives to Mankiw’s Ideology” Stephen Marglin, Walter Barker Professor of Economics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard …
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Stephen Marglin on “Heterodox Economics: Alternatives to Mankiw’s Ideology”
(reblogged from Werner Nienhueser,
http://employmentrelations.wordpress.com/category/arbeit/)
@tippingpts You are assuming–like Paul Krugman did and whose point you are
merely emulating like a drone–that returns to human capital are
deterministic when they are actually *stochastic*. Simply looking at real
income on a time series line is a simplistic test of increasing returns to
human capital.
@TallFastLoud A small group of people in Chicago got together and made the
bold prediction that rich people would get richer. It happened. Ergo,
freshwater. Q.E.D.
@LogicalFlawDetector I claimed one neo-keynsian predicted the crash – Proff
Steve Keen, as well as a number of modern Georgists all using debt based
models. You really are a master of Straw Men when it comes to debate Mr
Logic Flaw.
@LogicalFlawDetector watch Archon Fung’s lecture “Why Has Inequality Grown
in America? What Should We Do?” in this series for a rebuttal of this
point. It explains the distribution within the bottom 90% but above that
when you see what kind of jobs people have (while they’re all educated)
it’s not new kinds of education it’s stuff like law and management which
has always existed, the tech explanation breaks down at the top end of the
scale.
@MinorEconParameter And did you actually realize that Marglin comes from a
Marxian and Old Keynesian perspective? Marxian and Old Keynesian models are
outdated. The Marglin drones are similar to the clowns of the Intelligent
Design movement, who yell: “teach the controversy!” To quote Nobel
prize-winning economist Robert Lucas:”The attraction of neoclassical
economics is not that it is pretty–though it can be–but that, given half
a chance, it works.” It’s the predictive power that matters.
@LogicalFlawDetector – you did actually watch the video? While I can’t
apologize for Marglin I can ask why you disregard his clear purpose? He is
saying more about the sacrosanct nature of mainstream economics than he is
about income distribution. He might have picked a poor example, or
explained a decent example poorly. But his execution of the same is really
beside the point. Is it a worthwhile endeavorer to think critically of
(your) professional ideology?
Teach-in? HAHAHAHA. What the hell is wrong with these people?
@LogicalFlawDetector neoclassical critiques fail, claim neoclassicists.
Steve Keen isnt Neo-Keynesian hes a circuitist from the Post-Keynesian
school, very different from Neo-keynesians.
@jcamargo2005 It is not true that “Classical economics is just economics”.
In the 1860s, the “marginal revolution” changed supply and demand from
being a rule-of-thumb to an iron law stemming from bogus psychological
reasoning. Although this superficially resembled classical economics, it is
different and distinct. There are serious alternatives to this marginalist
paradigm. The Santa Fe Institute, for example, is developing a “complexity
school” where classical economics emerges nonlinearly!
Marglin is operating under the premise that income inequality is a bad
thing. I think a valid exercise, then, he should consider is the following:
Between the current income distribution and a distribution in which
everyone earned equal incomes, there is an optimal distribution respect to
which the current distribution is inefficient (implied). What is the
optimal distribution and how is it determined?
@LogicalFlawDetector – Neoclassical economics has failed to predict many
issues and has many fundamental flaws such as its inability to deal with
debt and rentier issues. Just massacring the straw men of ill-informed
Marxists and Austrians does not really lend any credibility to you
argument. I like the work of neoKeynesian like Steve Keen and modern
Georgists who have a lot to inform neoclassicals like your good self and
had the ability to predict the crash with excellent mathematical models.
@jcamargo2005 the difference is Marglin/heterodox economists try to
acknowledge their ideological bents rather than pretending, as the
neoclassicists do, that they don’t have any. As his colleague said “we
teach one kind of economics at Harvard, good economics.” That statement was
spoken while the global economy is collapsing, ecological catastrophe is
neglected, and governments are failing. If that isn’t dripping in ideology
then the Pope is an axiomatic theorem producer.
Barbara Bergmann makes a better case for ideology in economics in “The
Current State of Economics: Needs Lots of Work” (2005). The high degree of
hiring of economists by government creates an incentive for the field to
divide itself into two camps, one making proposals Democrats like and the
other catering to Republicans. The history of macro thought bears this out:
Classical (R), Keynesian (D), Chicago (R), New Keynesian (D), New Classical
(R), Institutionalists (D), Austrian (R), etc.
So Greg Mankiw was ideological and this is not? First minute and he starts
to mention american politics. Ten minutes and he is talking about ‘we as a
nation’ and social problems. Classical Economics is just economics, it is
controversial and gets continuously ‘revised’. First by Keynes and all his
followers and now these clowns, that think they have an ‘alternative’. Best
thing is, let these ignorants preach to themselves and learn economics for
yourself, to actually know how things work.
@unassumption I’m not Austrian. I have many disagreements with their
approach. Case in point: Praxeology. Marglin is criticizing neoclassical
economics, not Austrian economics. Now, there is nothing wrong in
criticizing neoclassical economics. Many have tried and all of them have
failed. And what’s worse, they have failed to provide alternative models
which explain microeconomic phenomenon better than neoclassical economics.
@LogicalFlawDetector I don’t know much about economics just that Austrians
and Marxists both fail. Welfare and stimulus heavy states seem to do better
than low tax, low regulation, low spending ones, and distribution seems
important. I don’t know what model works best but weather keynsian or
neoclassical it has to be scientific unlike the ones that seem to have most
political influence. Still neoclassic doesn’t seem to predict everything,
so maybe needs modifying a bit?
cool vid!!!
“..is the best when it comes to micro” Is it, really? Neoclassical micro is
internally illogical, from it’s assumptions to its conclusions. Thus, even
the more cohesive microfounded NK macro, espouses the fallacies from micro
alongside its own weaknesses.
Forget about the ideology. The logical flaws can easily exposed, along with
the inaccurate predictions. Just ask two simple questions? What are quality
and convenience? When is the one of the superior more valuable than an
infinite quantity of the inferior? Alex Gheg’s vid is less than 10 minutes
and will stump any Prof in class. youtube.com/watch?v=2c4mvGekYZY
@LogicalFlawDetector which phenomena, whose explanations and how did they
fail?
Fair point, I do not deny economic science can move forward. Just that the
main driving force on the 20th century is how to reformulate economics to
better serve ideology. That was not a good path.
@LogicalFlawDetector Neoclassical economics is not just microeconomics.
Mankiw is a macro economist and used the neoclassical synthesis as the
basis of his work, critiqued here. Neoclassical economics is not confined
to microeconomics and is used by all levels of Government to advise on
macro economic policy. It has singularly failed, we need better economic
models . You assertion this is just about microeconomics is a ‘straw men’
and a fundamental logic flaw on your part.
And who are those 1% Wall Street executives–non-college graduates?
Mankiw’s point about the returns to education being extremely high among
college graduates, who *disproportionately make up the top 1%*, has been
vindicated. Productivity increases, triggered by technological progress,
vastly increased the incomes of college graduates and graduate school
graduates relative to the incomes of just high school graduates, who
dominate the 99%. This includes MBAs in Wall Street.