The rhetoric of failure: a hyper-dialog about method in economics and how to get things going

Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont (2012): The rhetoric of failure: a hyper-dialog about method in economics and how to get things going.

Abstract

All are agreed that orthodox economics is unsatisfactory but there is wide disagreement, especially among heterodox critics, whether the problems lie at the level of substantive theory or at the level of methodology. This paper gives first an overview of the methodological questions at issue. The frame of reference includes J. S. Mill, Jevons, Popper, Keynes, and Lawson. Drawing on the conclusions, the domain of economics is subsequently refocused. Human behavior is moved from the center to the periphery. From elementary systemic properties the relation of income and profit is then consistently derived. This solves the profit conundrum.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: new framework of concepts; structure-centric; axiom set; income; profit; Mill’s Impossibility Proposition; Physicist’s Nonentity Proposition; Cournot’s Unfitness Proposition; Hudík’s Independence Proposition
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925 > B10 - General; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B3 - History of Economic Thought: Individuals > B30 - General; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B2 - History of Economic Thought since 1925 > B20 - General; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E1 - General Aggregative Models > E10 - General

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