Richard Murphy has decided to branch out. He’s going to develop a new economics.
Based upon:
And what is the aim? Simply this: to create a new economic model that can be taught as a system, that can replace the dire view of life that is presented in schools and on undergraduate university courses almost everywhere as if it were the truth about how people and businesses operate: that they really do profit maximise in a perfect and unconstrained world in which the gifts of nature are free and boundless.
Traditional economics represents an “unconstrained world”? Gifts of nature are free and boundless?
Erm, at the very centre of economics is the thought that human desires and wants are unlimited while the resources available to satisfy them are not. Thus the entire subject is about how scarce resources are allocated.
“Scarce”, not “unconstrained” nor “free and boundless”.
This doesn’t bode well for the new economics now, does it?
16 responses so far ↓
1 Richard Murphy // Jun 30, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Oh yes Tim
Seen the outcomes?
And who has ever paid for the gifts of nature? As opposed to those who claim the rent derived from owning them?
I also note your comment plagiarised from one on the blog
Richard
2 Luis Enrique // Jun 30, 2009 at 1:39 pm
“And who has ever paid for the gifts of nature? As opposed to those who claim the rent derived from owning them?”
Can you give some indication of what paying for the gifts of nature, as opposed to those who claim the rents, would look like?
Perhaps you mean replenishing resources or paying into some sort of environmental fund.
oh and Richard, perhaps just to save you some time and prevent you from trying to reinvent the wheel, you might like to spend some time on these links:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=environmental+economics
3 Ian Bennett // Jun 30, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Maybe he’s developing a new economics because he doesn’t understand the old one.
4 bella gerens // Jun 30, 2009 at 2:45 pm
the dire view of life that is presented in schools and on undergraduate university courses almost everywhere as if it were the truth about how people and businesses operate: that they really do profit maximise in a perfect and unconstrained world in which the gifts of nature are free and boundless.
That doesn’t sound dire; that sounds lovely. What’s his problem?
5 David Gillies // Jun 30, 2009 at 3:18 pm
The man is besotted with himself. His belief in his intellectual gifts are so wildly at variance with the reality as to make him little more than a pantomime figure. Murphy’s views on economics hold about as much water as Trofim Lysenko’s views on genetics.
6 prm // Jun 30, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Wrt the 5th comment, this might help explain RM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
From their abstract:
“People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. ”
http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/unskilled.html
7 Ian B // Jun 30, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Is anyone allowed to do this? It sounds like fun. I hope one does not have to be a man of substance like Mr Murphy to reinvent the entirety of western thought. It sounds like such jolly fun!
I, too, shall embark on a radical demolition of a straw man, finally defeating the argument that nobody else ever makes! My new theory will rock the very foundations of teh world!
8 Ian B // Jun 30, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Second – who says wants are infinite?
He doesn’t understand the difference between infinite and unbounded, either.
9 Kay Tie // Jun 30, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Does this mean that we over-estimate our ability to comprehend the Dunning-Kruger effect, not being behavioural scientists an’ all?
10 David Gillies // Jun 30, 2009 at 5:17 pm
prm: I’ve often thought that about Murphy.
11 Georges // Jun 30, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Kay Tie,
The answer to that question will no doubt be found on Murphy’s other new blog dealing with the “New Behavioural Science”.
12 Georges // Jun 30, 2009 at 5:41 pm
After a perusal of the new economics site, one question arises,
Q: What is the one difference between Keynes and Murphy?
A: Keynes does not believe he is Murphy.
13 Pa Annoyed // Jun 30, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Most natural resources are unlimited in the relevant economic sense. This sounds counter-intuitive, but is actually based on sensible economic principles and hard data. Julian Simon wrote a whole book about it – The Ultimate Resource. It’s worth reading.
(Or for a shorter introduction, the “Doomslayer” essay in Wired.)
I hadn’t realised the theory had reached the status of an orthodoxy for Richard Murphy to try to tear down. Good news, if it has.
14 JuliaM // Jun 30, 2009 at 7:32 pm
“The man is besotted with himself. His belief in his intellectual gifts are so wildly at variance with the reality as to make him little more than a pantomime figure.”
I don’t understand how it can be that someone like this isn’t in the current Cabinet. How did they miss this prize..?
15 steves // Jun 30, 2009 at 7:44 pm
gifts of nature are free and boundless.
maybe its just my distorted view of the world but the only natural resources are
air until brown taxes it and rain if you just let it fall
anything else is a gift of peoples endeavours, if you want water when its not raining then you have to collect it
to my great shame the man can claim to be an accountant and gives us mere mortal accountants a bad name
16 anon // Jun 30, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Let us hope his take on economics will be more credible than his take on tax, over which he knows jack shit.
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