Keynes' tip jar brought to us by Walter Heller "Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/gang8/message/11220
For my own part, my intuition is that the Metaphysical assumptions underpinning all schools of Economics simply do not reflect Reality.
So no matter how wonderful an intellectual edifice is erected upon them, if the foundations are weak, it won't stand up.
And as far as I can see, none of them do since all are based upon defining Value in one way or another, usually as Price.
In my untutored view it is only possible to proceed on the assumption that "Value" is indefinable, or definable only in relative terms.
My view of Economics is that it may be described as the "Physics of Value" (as opposed to Energy) and if we take such a Metaphysics of Value as a starting point then we might get somewhere. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Some economists, as you say, take that and make the unwarranted jump to 'Value = Money.'
But look at it another way. IF we take Quality as the metaphysical basis of Reality and we assert 'Value is an individuals response to Quality as embedded, or reflected, in a specific object¹' AND, in order for an Actor or Agent to gain physical possession of that object they have to fork over $3 THEN the Economic Value of that object has to be at least $3 to the Valuer.
Using this, we can go further since the Economic Value of the object is $3 to the seller and worth {$3 < x >y} to the buyer. By stating '{$3 < x}' we correctly, IMNSHO, symbolize the Value of an object, expressed as Economic Value, to the buyer is a range of measuration of all possible numbers x and y can take.
Looking at the seller, there is a minimum at which the object will be sold, the asking price, and the top price of the object which is infinity! If you're selling something for $3 and someone offers $2,000 would you refuse? Neither would anybody else!
So a (more) complete equation, note the lowest buying price is zero, is:
x < sp > Infinity = 0 < bp > y
Where:
x is the lowest selling price sp is the actual selling price bp is the actual buying price y is the highest buying price
BUT!
When we take about Quality and Value we cannot make use of the '=' sign. Why? Because for the transaction to take place the seller has to Value (MOQ) the buying price more than the object and the buyer has to Value (MOQ) the object more than the selling price. Thus, it is an asymmetrical transaction -- in more ways than one.
So let's restate:
(x < sp > Infinity) > (0 < bp > y) -- Seller's Side
(x < sp > Infinity) < (0 < bp > y) -- Buyer's Side
And it is obvious my little mathematical description is unsolvable unless the variables are taken as Second-Order (minimum) AND Statistical AND Probable.
So, unless I screwed-up somewhere -- the fox is in the henhouse.
******************* ¹ So I can avoid getting into Being and Action (Verbs.) ;-)
while finance capitalism is even more insane than industrial capitalism -- insanity of an even more abstracted, refined, and goofy order -- the fundamental disconnect where little details like entropy and thermodynamics are ignored, where the technomass is privileged over (and esterminates) the biomass, happens in the industrial model itself, whose materialist Utopian promise underlies both capitalism and communism. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
Firstly price and value are quantifications of individual desire. They can be time-based in the futures market sense. But they lack any wider social or ecological context. No system which is based on gimme gimme can be worth much, except possibly to children.
Secondly the concept of price is meaningless when relationships are assymetric. If a corporation decides that an object will cost £x, individuals have no bargaining power to change that cost. In the grossest sense they can either buy or not buy, but the price is not only set for them, but desire is artificially stimulated using media brainwashing techniques.
Economics in the real world is based almost entirely on these assymetrical power relationships. Convenient fictions about markets and rational agents are delusional, because all markets include a bias that favours some traders over others.
Finally, economics reduces all human transactions to a price and states that this price is the only important consideration.
The horror of this system isn't only that it's outdated and obsolete, or even that it's a major factor in the coming eco-crash.
The true horror is that so many humans seem to take the monster at face value, treating it affectionately, and accepting its diktats without questioning them.
I have been working on a diary like this one about possible interpretation/explanations of ecopnomic reality but instead of having a clear outcome it was just bits and pieces. I am amzaed how you managed to transmit an excellent idea: economic structures were pursued from economic departments.. so economic visions determined the outcome structure.
As you may know I have long defended that the only (or well the most) relevant force, the main driving force, are myths, discussions , anaratives about realitites.
Symbolic anthropology shows that reality adapts to symbols and myths .. because there is no other way to understand reality.. so an economic shift and paradigm can change reality but the mere fact of looking at from a different perspective (Friedman vission was a self-fulfilled prophecy)..Unfortunaltey economic reality has other effects on the human structure.
Maybe this statement is too strong for a reality-based community, but at least I think it is very important that we recall that at least economic thinging and mythology can indeed change reality structures.
I am amazed... a diary which is very good food for thought. I loved it.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Plus I loathe OOL's.
