[From Bill Williams 17 February 2004 12:00 PM CST]
[Martin Taylor 2004.02.18.2332]
>[From Bill Williams 17 February 2004 6:00 PM CST]
>
> > [Martin Taylor 2004.02.18.1649]
> >
>> I think in the world of economics, one has to distinguish between
>> "Economics" and "economics". The former has what Bill W likes to call
>> an "axiological" basis (meaning, so far as I can gather, that it is a
>> branch of pure maths based on finding out where logical theorems
>> derived from the axioms can get you). The latter is a messy and
>> confused approach to describing, and with luck predicting, what is
>> going to happen to the well-being of people if certain fiscal and
>> monetary policies are followed by the state or by institutions and
>> individuals.
>
>No Martin. You are getting it all confused.
Then could you define "axiological"? It sounds as if it means
something like "logical consequences of axioms". If it doesn't, then
maybe another word might be more readily interpreted.
"Axiological" is the adjective form, but the root pertains to the theory
of value. If you think of the foundations of thought many people divide
up fundamental topics into the theory of value (axiological concerns)
and the theory of logic. I really ought to get a dictionary of greek roots
and check the origins. But, the two fields of value theory and logical
theory each have their own subject-matter. Perhaps the use of
axiology dropped out of common useage during the period of positivism.
>Not that it isn't confused
>enough to start with. You aren't even close to the target. So, you can
>fire all lthe shells you want to in this direction, and it isn't going to
>scratch my hide.
From what mist did the cannon suddenly emerge?
Well, you are still identifying me with positions that I don't remotely
hold.
So, I could just as well ask you where this very strange, strange to me,
vision of Bill Williams came from. Mostly, since we don't know each
other all that well, you appears that when you hear me reject one side
of the European dualism, you assume that I must be a representative
of the other side of that dualism. That is, if I am not a positivistic
empiriicist, then I must be a platonic rationalist. But, there are other
ways to think about things than either of the dualisms of empricism or
rationalism.
I'm not firing or
intending to fire any shells at all.
OK. So, I exagerated.
I'm making a distinction between
top-down and bottom-up approaches.
But, there is also the possiblity of entering an inquiry from the side.
This would be neither top-down or bottom-up.
Or, if you like, distinguishing
between following the logical consequences of axioms versus looking
for consistencies in empirical and experimental data.
But, I don't see that I have to choose. And, I'm not alone in rejecting the
notion that I have to choose.
> > If I'm right, then there are two kinds of "starting over".
But, I think you are wrong, in thinking that there are only _two_ ways.
One is the
>> discovery of a different set of axioms on which to found a new
>> Economics,
You I think are identifying this with a platonistic approach.
while the other is the engineering-modelling approach
>> (economics) of finding models that describe from new viewpoints what
>> actually does happen in the real world,
Where did, this "real world" come from? Bill Powers has been telling me for
years about the "real world." But, it has never gotten any closer, and he
still
doesn't understand about accounting identies, and I doubt he has any
conception at all of value theory. (I will repeat-- value theory is not
platonism.)
and perhaps working back from
>> the models to "Natural Laws" of economics (and maybe better axioms of
>> a new Economics).
>
>This is a false distinction.
How can it possibly be false?
I will claim it can be "false" because it isn't neccesary to divide up
reality this
way. Each side of the characteristic european conceptions "idealism" and
"materialism" have well known inadaqucies. The two dualisms have survived
as long as they have by conducting what amounts to a family fight-- while
more
adaquate conceptions are neglected. Or, perhaps almost entirely unknown.
Explain, please.
There has been for quite some time a fairly well organized tradition that
rejects
both idealism and materialism. Roots of the tradition go back to Scottish
philsophy and Reed. The ideas developed and pass on by Jefferson, Emerson,
Henry James the elder, Charles Pierce, William James, and John Dewey.
I'm familiar with the tradition in part because neither idealism nor
materialism
supply a workable foundation for economic theory. This is what I suspect is
behind Bruun's statement p. 71. in her dissertation that "money has a logic
all
its own." (this is from memory but it is close)
You appear to have adopted a "materialist" position. It works well enough I
suppose for physics, chemistry and a physiological psychology. But, it
doesn't work at all, at least in my understanding, for fields such as
linguistics,
or economics.
If the top-down and
bottom-up approaches meet in the middle, that's great, but it doesn't
make them any the less distinct.
They may in some sense "meet in the middle." But, there is no way that I
have
every seen that either, or both together, of the idealist or materialist
conceptions
can provide a self-consistent basis for econmic theory.
>And, bringing back "natural laws" is one of
>those "giant leaps in the wrong direction."
Perhaps you misunderstand the concept of "natural law". To me, it's a
statement of the way things interact (behave) under some defined
restricted set of circumstances, which cannot be altered by human
choices. No more than that.
OK. Your defintion of "natural law" is basically a "materialism."
her either kind of "starting over" is likely to make inroads into
>> Economics is rather like asking a priori whether Lobachevskian
>> geometry will make inroads into Euclidean. It won't. It's a different
>> beast. A more useful question is whether following policies suggested
>> by either a new Economics or a new economics will make life better
>> for most people, and that depends on being as politically persuasive
>> as are the proponents of the disastrous Economics that currently are
>> so powerful.
I think we might agree about many issues, perhaps not all, but I think it
would be
helpful before continuing to identify the who and the what that is the
referent
of your "disastrous Economics." I would argue that there is more than one
"disastrous Economics." There are I am convinced several. Marxism is not
dead. Neither is facism. And, even the middle of the road mainstream
economics
seems to have a surprizingly distructive staying power.
>
>Since, as they say, "Money doesn't talk, it shouts." this is going to be
a
>tough road to travel.
Well, at least we agree on something in this post!
Good.
> In other words, you are working with "economics", meaning there's no
>> point in arguing about "Economics."
No. We aren't at this point really communicating.
>
>I'm warning you, travel this direction, and you end up in well-- bedlam.
In what direction? Warning people not to try discussing Economic
thinking when they are trying to understand economics?
I am not sure it helps, but it seems to me that both sides of the division
in
European thought between "idealism" and "materialism" contain defects.
And, between them the defects generate characteristic problems. Many of
these problems land in economics. How for instance would you define a
price level? You can not possibly add up the material that goes out the
factory door to get a level of economic production. You can't even add up
apples and watermellons, let alone diamonds and sulfuric acid. Economic
output is not material. But, there isn't anything much more absurd than the
notion of an "idealistic" economy. Economic output is real in a sense that
can not be accounted for in idealistic terms. So, econmic output needs a
completely different foundation than either materialism or idealism.
Clearly, the warning is exaggerated, but I think exaggeration is
beneficial at this point. There may come a time when the opposite
warning might be more useful, but I don't think that time is now. Too
many people have failed to make the distinction, and criticize
Economics on the basis of data, which is the proper domain of
economics.
Neither Economics, nor economics can have a self-consistent foundation.
In following Bagno, I
>> follow the logic induced by a introducing into Economics a new axiom
>> based on the more general laws of Nature. Doing so constrains the
> > applicability of the logical consequences of other Economic axioms to
>> the real world. But it's still a mathematical game, albeit one in
>> which at least one axiom has a strong relation to physical reality.
I wouldn't reject part of what you say. But, I don't think that the
"materialistic"
conception of "Physical Reality" is viable.
>
>One more time, economics is not about physical reality.
On the contrary.
You I am sure, interprete my rejection of the materialistic conception of a
physical reality in terms of my opting for an "idealistic" conception. But,
I don't have to do this. My choices are wider than you seem to suppose.
I would say that Economics is not about physical
reality, whereas economics is.
I would say that both are defective, and I have other options.
Capital-E Economics is based on the
logical consequences of abstract axioms that have no necessary
connection with reality, whereas economics is based on observing
reality.
Your argument is in a sense self-consistent, but we are not at this
point communicating. To repeat, I have alternatives other than the
two that you suggest.
It may be true that followers of Economics sometimes look to
see whether their constructs produce numbers that look like real
data, but that's not usually the main objective, as you yourself have
pointed out in some detail.
My criticism is equally dismissive of both an economics associated with
materialism and an economics associated with idealism.
But, this isn't something that is going to get sorted out in this go-around.
> the consistent mistake that people outside
>economics seem to consistently make, is to think that they can avoid
>thinking about value.
What makes you say that?
Read Bill Powers' posts-- he has said quite directly that he is going to
approach economics as a concrete question. ( I suppose this is due
to the influence of TC Powers. _Concrete_ do you get it? But, Powers
is, no joke, attempting to approach economics in a strictly materialist
mode of inquiry. What he doesn't tell us, however, is what good an
economic model will be that only has _one_ good. That is _all_ that his
approach is ever going to support. Without a value theory, you can not
deal with an economy with multiple commodities.
Isn't Bagno's entire essay, and my thesis
based on it, all about value and the correspondences between the
value of money and the value of goods and services present, past, and
future?
I think your approach may be open to the criticism of materialism, that
I've been suggesting. Can you for instance tell me how you construct a
price index? If you can not explain the construction of price index then
there some severe limitations. Not, that the work isn't useful in some
other ways, but it isn't economics, or Economcs. Unless you can explain
money, and price indexs, I wouldn't think many people would consider it
economics. (in a macro-economic sense).
the physical reality that OUGHT to underly a science of
economics. But value exists only in the minds of people (and other
living things that can make choices), which means we have to come
back to what you have been saying all along--that we have to use a
viable model of people as the basis for a real science in which we
wouldn't care whether the "E" is capitalized or not.
I think in the above we may be either in agreement or very close to
agreement.
There is a lot more to sort out, but this provides a place to start.
>Martin, can I send you a copy of Steve Keen's book? If you had a copy of
>Keen's book there wouldn't be any need to puzzle over Kant's first
critique.
Sure you can--free gifts always accepted, provided that Canada
Customs accepts that it has no commercial value
But I don't
think I puzzled over anything much in the posting to which you
responded, except to wonder why influential people put their faith in
Economics rather than economics.
As a materialist, this is what you should say. I don't trust either of your
alternatives Economics or economics. I am quite confident that both are
defective.
Interestingly, the good Professor Bruun points out the problem quite clearly
without having any idea at all of how to solve it.
If you read the theoretical literature in economics you very frequently
encounter what amount to "impossibility" proofs. In a sense the analysis
of the Giffen paradox that Bill Powers and I worked out, amounts to an
impossibility proof for any system based upon maximization-- either as
a behavioral or a basis for a price index. I'd have to think about it but
it seems to me that if I couldn't find a proof that no materialistic
foundation
can support an economic analysis, I might be able to generate one.
And, if I can't it is likely that my Chinese mathematician can.
At this stage I don't think we are communicating, but despite that from my
standpoint this has been a most useful exchange.
Bill Williams