Political Economy: Utopianism or Practicality?

Comment: If you could refer to one of the utopian stances, be it a celebration of neoclassical perfect competition or the stuff spawned by marginal schools (such as Austrian Economics or the Georgist pettiness) which one would it be? I'd choose the Austrians. If their understanding was relevant I'd at least get to say stuff and not worry about evidence to support me. Splendid!

Question: Is there any aspect of the political economy involved missed?

 

I am unsure what you are asking here. I usually enjoy your posts, and they usually make me think(I often have to google a lot, but that is fine). However, I don't understand your point nor your question here. Please elaborate.

 

My fault to be honest. I changed my post several times because I have so many questions (or complaints, if you want to see it that way)

I originally started with a basic "what school of thought do you follow?" question. But I also wanted folk to justify that stance. I am then also miffed that I have to deal with so many utopians that completely ignore economic reality (gets terribly tiresome!). End result: confusion in comment.

Stick with political economy if it helps. To what extent are you content with the orthodox approach? Do you enjoy comment from the other schools or, unfortunately like most of us, is your understanding of economics warped by the orthodox?

 

a little confused of what you are asking but I guess I will try to answer. Keynesian economics seems rather utopian to me. It would be great to have a moral central planner who is all knowing and can decide on spending.

Although it is a nice idea that seems logical however one I don't trust central planners and I think that they can know what to spend on which would result in much wasteful spending.

 

I'd have to disagree with you strongly here! Keynesianism is based on acknowledging the innate problems within capitalism, be it behavioural economics to help explain instabilities or pricing policy to reject the perfect relationship between orthodox microeconomics and macroeconomy result

Interesting use of the vocab 'waste'. Marxist and socialist schools would refer to the need for such waste in capitalism to minimise the threat of economic crisis. However, I reckon you're just referring to bastardised Keynesianism which tried to use the Phillips Curve to suggest choice between competing economic objectives was essentially just determined by the central planner's social welfare function. That was a red herring engineered by an orthodox desire to support orthodox microeconomics in the face of possible rejection from macroeconomic analysis

 

Clicked on this thread knowing it would be a waste of time.

Was right.

 

No problem. However, you're utopian and therefore unable to respond. Being unable to respond is useful in itself though so cheers!

 

Because there is no real competition, that relies on the government having the motivation to do the right thing, and the intelligence to know what to do.

But, politicians don't need to do the right thing to stay in power, they just have to make their competitor look like they would do something worse.

 

There is motivation and competition: re-election! Will there be government failures? Yes. Will there be influence costs, given discretionary powers and the consequences of asymmetric information? Certainly. However, none of that distracts from the reality that Keynesianism is the study of imperfections and an effective means to stabilise capitalism. Calling it utopian doesn't make sense!

 

You didn't read my second statement.

How do you fire a government that creates those failures?

Sure it does. Keynes provided government an excuse to throw money at a problem. Lokk at US government spending before Keynes, and after. Look at the health of the country before and after.

Are these positive results?

 

It wasn't of any merit to the point made. That economic conditions are important for re-election is darn obvious.

Given capitalism continues to thrive (and crisis has been at least reduced), its unfortunately been a resounding success.

 

Then you missed my point. Re-read what I said, then your last two comments.

And governments have spent huge sums of money, justified by Keynesianism, to reward their cronies.

How cute you think that is capitalism thriving.

 

In terms of my comment, you didn't have one!

Given its innate instability, its amazing that its still the dominant paradigm. You may want to avoid the inconvenient truths over capitalism but that just reflects utopianism run amok

 

Unlike you, I am not cryptic, so if you didn't understand how my statement applied, that means you simply don't understand.

Keynesianism is "still" the dominant paradigm. It had fallen from grace just shortly after Lord keynes died, only to be ressurected when politicians needed an excuse to throw money at the problem (but not where Lord Keynes said to throw it - sill politicians).

 

You just struggle with validity!

This is drivel. Keynesianism is a school of thought. Even then we can refer to different strains. The economic paradigm is capitalism. Its survival has been reliant on Keynesianism (with admittedly some stupidity in between, such as the nonsense debate generated by the Phillips Curve and IS/LM)

 

ROTFL

Only under your limited definitions, and in the journals you use to confirm your bias.

 

Standard anti-intellectualism expected from utopian

 

But, not refuted.

 

One doesn't refute anti-intellectualism, one ignores it.

 

How do I put faith in someone that doesn't follow their own advice?

 

I'm not sure I'm well versed enough on the subject to pin myself down accurately. I suppose I could put myself in with other public choice theorists. I think behavior and incentives are two of the most important aspects of an emergent system. I'm also sympathetic to the mild anti-state undertones. However I'm critical of some of the ways it attempts to understand voter and politicians behavior, while rational self interest is certainly a guiding force, us as sentient beings are highly unpredictable and it's impossible to know all the factors influencing an individuals behavior.

I'm not nearly well versed enough on political economy to even pretend I'm making any sense, so hopefully I've managed to put something coherent together.

 

What's most important? Agency costs or influence costs?

 

It'd depend on the context I suppose.

 

Go on, give more detail! Its an interesting issue as they're often just lumped together, despite being terribly distinct

 

My economic understanding is limited!! It comes from 5 classes in undergraduate economics, and some independent reading. My area of focus was history in undergrad, and now in graduate school it has shifted into a more anthropological approach!! However, what I can say in regards to many economic schools, is I dislike any school that relies entirely on deductive lines of reasoning!! They are always highly flawed, and they are never capable of accurately predicting human behavior on a consistent basis. Instead they attempt to shoe-horn instances that do not fit into the theory, into the theory by assuming the theory is regular, and the instance where it fails to hold is irregular. They then seek to find contingencies and causes for the failure of their theory to hold up. This happens over and over again, while the supporters of the theory never fathom that it could be the theory that is flawed, not the individuals responsible for the blip!! I only take seriously branches of thought that consider inductive forms of reasoning to be valid and useful, and try to draw their conclusions based on that empirical evidence!! Induction is not without it's flaws of course, but in my opinion it is vastly superior to deduction.


PS. Sorry for the semi-irrelevancy!! I don't know that I fit neatly into any category, because I don't know enough of the economic theory behind the schools to judge.