marx, keynes and the economics of the 99% john weeks professor emeritus soas, university of london
TRANSCRIPT
Marx, Keynes andthe economics of the 99%
John WeeksProfessor Emeritus SOAS, University of Londonhttp://jweeks.org
Forthcoming book(October 2013)
Economics of the 1%: How mainstream economics
serves the rich, obscures
reality and distorts policy
Anthem Presswww.anthempress.com
(£13.95/US$ 18.95)
For the technical version of today's presentation, see John Weeks, The Irreconcilable Inconsistencies of
Neoclassical Economics: false paradigm
(Routledge 2012)
and
"Effectiveness of Monetary Policy Reconsidered,"
Review of Political Economy (Issue 1, 2013)
Lionel Robbins specifies the problem:
Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between given ends and scarce means which have alternative uses. (Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (London: Macmillan 1932), p16)
J M Keynes specifies the problem When I began to write my Treatise on Money I was still moving along the traditional lines…I had made some progress towards pushing monetary theory back to becoming a theory of output as a whole. But my lack of emancipation from preconceived ideas showed itself in what now seems to me to be the outstanding fault of the theoretical parts of that work, that I failed to deal thoroughly with the effects of changes in the level of output. (Keynes, The General Theory, 1936, vi-vii, emphasis added)
What is the difference & why does it matter?
(It is for real, go to www.astrology.org.uk)
versus
(also for real,www.alchemystudy.com)
Versus
EconomicsVersus
"Neoclassical economics"[aka Fakeconomics]
What is economics?
I propose:
The study of the mobilization of resources to achieve full employment and maximum feasible output, in order to increase the general welfare.