1.0 Introduction Economists of the Austrian school generally retain some concept that lower interest rates incentivize capitalists or entrepreneurs to adopt more lengthy production processes, in some sense, while still rejecting aggregate physical measures of roundaboutness or capital intensity. This post collects some quotations of economists of the Austrian school or Austrian-adjacent saying such or saying something confused about the Cambridge Capital Controversy. I want to recall this post. 2.0 Hayek on the Mythology of Capital Hayek's 1936 paper is, I think, often cited by Austrian econom ..read more

Figure 1: The Wage-Rate of Profits Frontier 1.0 Introduction This post completes a demonstration that the economic life of a machine is independent of the capital-intensity of a technique. I here fill in the upper right of a two-by-two table. I have previously filled in the upper-left and lower right entries. And I also have an example for the lower left. 2.0 Technology Tables 1 and 2 present coefficients of production for processes which can be combined to produce a new output of corn. The example has the structure of one from Salvatore Baldone. Corn is assumed to be the sole consu ..read more

I have previously repeated some transcriptions from the correspondence Marx and Engels. I tried to concentrate on some formulations from Engels of ideas important in Marxism, Marx stating what is important and novel in Capital, or outlines of the project, particularly concentrating on the so-called transformation problem. This long letter certainly belongs in this collection. Marx's ideas were fairly well-developed in 1858. Here he has promised Duncker, a publisher, to write what eventually became A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. After delay, he only delivered to the publis ..read more

1.0 Introduction I have been reading Robin Hahnel. Hahnel argues even more strongly than Steedman did that labor values are redundant. And he argues for the importance of the fundamental Sraffian theorem. I think this may be Hahnel's coinage. Anyways' this is my working my way through some of what I think he is saying. Hahnel has some interesting things to say, not discussed here, about analyzing environmental concerns in a Sraffian framework. I ignore the chapter in Hahnel (2017) on the moral critique of capitalism. Following Eatwell (2019) and others, I hold that mainstream economists do not ..read more

Here is John Maynard Keynes in 1926: "Let us clear from the ground the metaphysical or general principles upon which, from time to time, laissez-faire has been founded. It is not true that individuals possess a prescriptive 'natural liberty' in their economic activities. There is no 'compact' conferring perpetual rights on those who Have or on those who Acquire. The world is not so governed from above that private and social interest always coincide. It is not so managed here below that in practice they coincide. It is not a correct deduction from the Principles of Economics that enlightened ..read more

Figure 1: The Wage-Rate of Profits Frontier This post continues a series of posts demonstrating that the change in the economic life of a machine at a switch point is independent of the change of the capital intensity of the technique at a switch point. I here fill in the lower left in a a two-by-two table. The wage curves above are for the an example with the same structure as in the previous post in this series.This is a 'one-good' model. The manager of firms know three processes to produce a widget, also known as a machine. In the first process, labor and a new widget are used to ..read more

1.0 Introduction John Maynard Keynes had some amusing jibes against Marx, but does not provide any substantial argument against the theory in Marx's Capital. In fact, one can draw parallelisms between elements of Keynes' and Marx's theories. This post provides a brief start on justifications for these assertions. 2.0 Jibes Keynes' most explicit and most well-known statement about Marx is probably this: "How can I accept a doctrine which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete economic textbook which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or ap ..read more

Figure 1: The Wage-Rate of Profits Frontier 1.0 Introduction This is one in a series of posts demonstrating that the change in the economic life of a machine at a switch point is independent of the change of the capital intensity of the technique at a switch point. I want to illustrate each entry in a two-by-two table in a previous post. The example in this post has two switch points. One fits the traditional Austrian and neoclassical stories, as in the entry in the upper-left of the table. The other switch point is 'perverse' in both ways, as in the entry in the lower right. 2.0 Te ..read more

Matt McManus on Thomas Sowell. A review of Adam Shatz's biography of Frantz Fanon. Nathan Robinson interviews Kohei Saito on degrowth. I have not read Bob Rowthorn on neo-ricardianism in decades. I wish NLR made PDFs of old articles freely available ..read more

Table 1: Lower Rate of Profits Around A Switch Point Traditional Marginalist Story 'Perverse' Marginalist Story Traditional Austrian Story Negative real Wicksell effect, greater net output per worker Positive real Wicksell effect, smaller net output per worker Longer economic life of machine Longer economic life of machine 'Perverse' Austrian Story Negative real Wicksell effect, greater net output per worker Positive real Wicksell effect, smaller net output per worker Shorter economic life of machine Shorter economic life of machine I have been thinking about perturbations of coef ..read more