Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist calculation debate
If Cockshott had waited a bit more, he might not look the complete fool he does here. This is still largely an argument based on the idea that logistics is economics turned into a hard science. That would be logistics on a macro-economic scale. That may be, but it is no more a science of political economy than econometrics. CJ -- Japan Higher Education Outlook http://japanheo.blogspot.com/ We are Feral Cats http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist calculation debate
Also, it might interesting to note here that Koopmans won the prize the same year (1975), and the work of Koopmans and Kantorovich really follows from the first winner of the prize, Tinbergen. And Frisch btw won it at the same time as Tinbergen. Although Kantorovich may be the only 'Soviet' here, he is not at all anathema to the likes of Koopmans, Tinbergen, or Myrdal, the guy who won it the same year as von Hayek (1974). Austrian economics is often heterodox to other forms of economics emanating from both sides of the political spectrum. That is because counter 20th century trends, it eschews quantification (stats, maths), induction and experimental induction. So you can put the Austrians in counterpoint with just about any mainstream economist of distinction. Conservatives, I think, tended to 'cherry-pick' ideas from the Austrians to serve their ideological purposes. BTW, the prize in economics is a very strange prize, with a very complex and changing title. See this take: http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text172_p.html excerpt: But by then the debate had moved to its real subject matter. Some members of the Swedish Academy were doubtful if economics was a genuine science and disliked the whole idea of awarding the prize. In the end the prize for Nash, jointly with two other winners, was approved, but after a majority vote -- something which learned and established bodies hate to have. The aftermath was an inquiry into the future of the prize. It was decided to broaden it into a general prize for social sciences and to bring two non-economists onto the awarding committee. Some changes have been evident as a result. For instance in 2002 the award was shared by one experimental economist whose findings favoured the Austrian type of neo-classical theory and a psychologist who disputed most of the usual economic assumptions. Nevertheless the majority have still been given for research into mainstream topics. The joint 2003 prizes were awarded for innovatory statistical analysis of time series. The dispute about the value of the prize is still running. A former Swedish finance minister, Kjell Olof Feldt, who himself subsequently became head of the Riksbank, has advocated abolishing the economics prize. Some members of the present generation of the Nobel family have done the same. One is reminded of the disputes among the descendants of the composer Richard Wagner, who still claim the right to decide the future of the Festival Theatre he established in Bayreuth. Indeed a few of the economics prize winners themselves expressed reservations, Friedrich Hayek, the free market political economist who won the prize jointly with the Swedish socialist Gunnar Myrdal in 1974, was grateful that the prize rescued him from a long period of personal depression and had relaunched his ideas - well before Margaret Thatcher started to publicise his name. Yet he admitted that if he had been consulted on whether to establish the prize he would have decidedly advised against it. Myrdal rather less graciously wanted the prize abolished because it had been given to such reactionaries as Hayek (and afterwards Milton Friedman). How does the matter look now? A glance at the correspondence columns for the FT will show that mainstream academic economics is far from being the only source of ideas on the subject. Business school theorists, contemporary historians, engineers with an interest in policy and opinionated businessmen all weigh in. It is the Nobel Prize which gives some kind of imprimatur to mainstream academic ideas, which combine an emphasis on individual utility maximisation and the role of markets, with advanced statistical techniques. It has not however in the least increased the willingness of policy makers to accept international free trade or reject the lump of labour fallacy - matters on which most academic theorists are agreed. An insight indeed comes from comparing two very recent books on Hayek. The first by Alan Ebenstein is simply called Friedrich Hayek, a Biography, (Palgrave 2001). The second is Bruce Caldwell's Hayek's Challenge, (University of Chicago Press, 2003.) While both books are sympathetic their interpretations are very different. Ebenstein follows Milton Friedman in treating Hayek as a distinguished political philosopher whose views on economic methods were antediluvian. He accepts Friedman's view of economics as science like any other and thus implicitly endorses the Nobel Prize. Caldwell on the other hand steers as clear as he can of the political debate but shares Hayek's own scepticism about modern economics and its ability to make specific refutable predictions. (Hayek's Nobel Lecture was entitled The Pretence of Knowledge.) He asks whether there really has been steady cumulative progress as economic laws are discovered and improved empirical methods introduced. His own work on micro economics makes him extremely doubtful. And I would endorse this from the macro side. We know that an
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the soci alist calculation debate
The Nobel Prize in Economics is arguably not a real Nobel Prize since Alfred Nobel made no provision for such a prize in his will. It was instead established by the Bank of Sweden in the late 1960s as a Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. And they arguably did this for ideological reasons since conventional mainstream economics was coming under fire in the wake of the upheavals of the 1960s. Anyway,concerning the Nobel Prize in economics. There is the strange case of Joan Robinson, and why she didn't get the Nobel Prize in economics. She was widely expected to get the Prize in 1975. Indeed, Business Week published a profile on her, precisely because they, along with just about everybody else was expecting her to win the Prize, but the Nobel committee, instead, at the last moment, awarded it to Leonid Kantorovich, and the American, Tjalling C. Koopmans, for their work in creating linear programming. Apparently, Robinson despite her contributions in such areas as the analysis of imperfect competition and capital theory (work which was of at least the same caliber as that of other economists who did win the Prize) was denied it because of her outspoken leftist, even Maoist, politics, and many say, because she was after all a woman. No woman has ever won the Prize in economics. It was also said that the Nobel Committee was fearful that she might pull a Sartre and turn down the prize, possibly following that up with a denunciation of the economics profession in general. In fact it is reported that she went out of her way to reassure the Committee that she had no intentions of doing any such thing, but they never awarded her the Prize anyway. And of course a man like Paul Sweezy, who was the dean of American Marxist economics was never in the running for such a prize, even though he had made contributions to technical economics (such as his kinked edge demand curve under conditions of oligopoly) which would have normally merited the Prize if that work had been done by someone else. Jim F. -- Original Message -- From: CeJ jann...@gmail.com To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist calculation debate Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 19:20:25 +0900 Also, it might interesting to note here that Koopmans won the prize the same year (1975), and the work of Koopmans and Kantorovich really follows from the first winner of the prize, Tinbergen. And Frisch btw won it at the same time as Tinbergen. Although Kantorovich may be the only 'Soviet' here, he is not at all anathema to the likes of Koopmans, Tinbergen, or Myrdal, the guy who won it the same year as von Hayek (1974). Austrian economics is often heterodox to other forms of economics emanating from both sides of the political spectrum. That is because counter 20th century trends, it eschews quantification (stats, maths), induction and experimental induction. So you can put the Austrians in counterpoint with just about any mainstream economist of distinction. Conservatives, I think, tended to 'cherry-pick' ideas from the Austrians to serve their ideological purposes. BTW, the prize in economics is a very strange prize, with a very complex and changing title. See this take: http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text172_p.html Protect your investment. Click here to find the homeowner insurance policy that you need. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTIoQHDtrclOMCC5BNhFhOABiGUTdiZTlCUoOcOaBPlrosPpTYsLqo/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist calculation debate
The Nobel Prize in Economics is arguably not a real Nobel Prize since Alfred Nobel made no provision for such a prize in his will. It was instead established by the Bank of Sweden in the late 1960s as a Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Yeah most people don't recall that it was first awarded in 1969! And they arguably did this for ideological reasons since conventional mainstream economics was coming under fire in the wake of the upheavals of the 1960s. Do you think it was still yet another time when the liberal-conservative spectrum was afraid of the success of some form of socialism (while both liberals and conservatives have long cherry-picked the weirdo Austrians and other various heterodoxists and libertarians) ? OTOH, if you wanted to approach mainstream economics' failure at basic epistemology, you might start with how their theories failed to account for what really happened, for example, at the European Coal and Steel Community (I suppose at the outset people like Tinbergen thought it would be a laboratory for testing ideas about centralized planning). In terms of think tanks, public policy advocacy, ideological arguments in the political systems and in actual decisions in government, the controversies in economics in the US, UK and what is now the EU were and are often still quite different. Anyway,concerning the Nobel Prize in economics. There is the strange case of Joan Robinson, and why she didn't get the Nobel Prize in economics. She was widely expected to get the Prize in 1975. Indeed, Business Week published a profile on her, precisely because they, along with just about everybody else was expecting her to win the Prize, but the Nobel committee, instead, at the last moment, awarded it to Leonid Kantorovich, and the American, Tjalling C. Koopmans, for their work in creating linear programming. What is BW's track record in predicting anything? You might think that in a Greek sense that fate doomed her. Still, I hadn't known--or at least don't remember-- that about Robinson. Apparently, Robinson despite her contributions in such areas as the analysis of imperfect competition and capital theory (work which was of at least the same caliber as that of other economists who did win the Prize) was denied it because of her outspoken leftist, even Maoist, politics, and many say, because she was after all a woman. Given her research areas mentioned here, it looks like there might have been an issue with her preceding some of those GUYS who did get it in the 1970s, awards which to quite an extent were in recognition of work done long before the 1970s (although some would later go on to make their reputations in terms of popular ideas with arguments they developed AFTER they won the award). No woman has ever won the Prize in economics. It was also said that the Nobel Committee was fearful that she might pull a Sartre and turn down the prize, possibly following that up with a denunciation of the economics profession in general. In fact it is reported that she went out of her way to reassure the Committee that she had no intentions of doing any such thing, but they never awarded her the Prize anyway. I almost think Larry Summers was thinking economics was on the same footing as other logicized, algebraicized, otherwise quantified, statisticized and probalisticized fields when he stuck his own limb in his mouth about 'gender differences'. And of course a man like Paul Sweezy, who was the dean of American Marxist economics was never in the running for such a prize, even though he had made contributions to technical economics (such as his kinked edge demand curve under conditions of oligopoly) which would have normally merited the Prize if that work had been done by someone else. Which means that 'important' work is still done in clusters, groups and networks of people linked to the various institutions of the establishment. Of course the 'establishment' is both good at ignoring good ideas or just stealing them and giving credit to someone else. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Paul Cockshott on Leonid Kantorovich and the socialist calculation debate
Here's a question. How many Cambridge Keynesians have ever won the economic prize? Robinson seems to have got herself on the WRONG side of a major argument/controversy with Samuelson and Solow. To the personal level. She even came up with new cateogrical descriptors for Samuelson (while Solow was econometrically incomprehensible). I don't know if it messed up her chances in 1975, but it might have hurt her in later years. But then again she was really at the end of her career by the 1970s, and died in 1983. Perhaps a combination of the book on China (praising the Cultural Revolution--hey, many western intellectuals lose thier heads after getting the Cook's tour of an Asian country) and her arguments with Samuelson and Solow doomed her bid. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
