Jenseits der Synthesen des Mainstreams
Anmerkungen zu Heiner Flassbeck’s “Gescheiterte Globalisierung”
(Rezensionen hier)
One Man Island?
Wenn man als einigermassen Angloliterturkundiger Hobby-Oekonom den Flassbeck Buchdeckel liest spürt man einen vorfreudigen Hoffnungsschimmer. Endlich mal ein deutscher Oekonom der die heutzutage sogar schon von Billionären kritisierte Verteilunsungerechtigkeiten mit Nicht-Mainstream Beiträgen mischt und dem deutschen Leser nahebringt?
Denn bei “Geld” denkt man etwa an die neuen Minskyaner wie Steve Keen oder die Positive Money Reformer. Bei “Rennaissance des Staates” an Mariana Mazzucato oder MMT. Und wenn es um den im Buchinnern implizierten Anspruch auf ein neues Paradigma geht mag man an Kate Raworth or David Orrell denken. Nicht Keynesianische Heteros wie Neu-Hayekaner Peter Boettke oder Ur-Marxist David Harvey erwähne ich noch nichtmal.
Denn selbst was die Post Keynesianer angeht wird der Leser leider enttäuscht. Flassbeck bezieht sich auf keinen der oben genannten, ausser kurz und abwertend auf Geldreformer Joseph Huber.
Heiner Flassbeck scheint ein “one man island” zu sein. Und es ist nicht so einfach ihn im Oekonomie Atlas zu orten. Er ist offensichtlich Dissident in der deutschen Oekonomielandschaft, aber eben eher Einzelgänger. Er ist kein richtiger Hetero, also Oesterreicher, Hayekian, Schumpeterian oder gar Marxist, aber auch kein typischer Ur-Keynesianischer Post-Keynesianer.
Sein Intimfeind scheint eine speziell deutsche Exportweltmeisterversion der neoliberalen Neo-Klassik zu sein? Aber er schimpft auf Krugman genauso wie auf den deutschen IFO Konsensus. Ein New Keynesian will er anscheined auch nicht sein.
Obwohl anlässlich Krugmann’s jüngster (Selbst)kritik betreffs Globalisierung, sprich klassischer Ricardoesker “free trade assumptions”, könnte man denken dass es da einige Übereinstimmungen gibt? Allerdings klingt Flassbeck’s Ansatz von der Markt/Arbeitsmarkt Seite manchmal wie eine noch fundamentalere Extraüberhohung der Philips Kurve?
Klar ist Flassbeck’s explizite pro Arbeitnehmer Perspektive, die sich am meisten daruber ärgert dass es den “Glassperlenspiel-Oekonomen” gelungen ist den dumm gutgläubigen Poltikern und sogar Gewerkschaftlern das Runter- und unter Produktionszuwachs – drücken der Löhne als wissenschaftliche Notwendigkeit zu verhökern?
Ist Flassbeck womöglich doch ein besonders einsiedlerischer Post Keynesianer ?
Der Oekonomische Schulatlas
Schauen wir erst nochmal auf die volkswirtschaftliche Landkarte. In der Anglowelt wird bisweilen ein Art Fortschritt suggeriert hin zu der dominanten Mainstream Variante der neuen (=new, not neo) Keynesianischen Synthese. Die New Keynesians rangieren von Bernanke bis Yellen via Blanchard, Krugman, Rogoff and Romer (?) um nur ein paar relativ berühmte zu nennen.
Verschiedene Entwicklungsstufen sollen zum New Keynesianismus hingeführt haben, jede verbunden mit einer entsprechenden Synthese der klassischen und Keynsianischen Oekonomie.
Hier ein paar Beschreibungen von Wikipedia (Betonungen immer von mir)
“The heart of the new Keynesian view rests on microeconomic models that indicate that nominal wages and prices are “sticky”, i.e. do not change easily or quickly with changes in supply and demand, so that quantity adjustment prevails. According to economist Paul Krugman, this “works beautifully in practice but very badly in theory”.
Price stickiness means that there are a variety of possible equilibria in the short run, so that rational expectations models do not produce any simple result.
This new Keynesian integration is further spurred by work of other economists which questions rational decision-making in a perfect information environment as a necessity for micro-economic theory. Imperfect decision making such as that investigated by Joseph Stiglitz underlines the importance of management of risk in the economy.
New classical economics relied on the theory of rational expectations to reject Keynesian economics. Most well-known is the critique by Robert Lucas, who argues that rational expectations will defeat any monetary or fiscal policy. …
However, new Keynesians argue that this critique only works if the economy has a unique equilibrium at full employment. Price stickiness means that there are a variety of possible equilibria in the short run, so that rational expectations models do not produce any simple result. …
New Keynesian economists agree with New Classical economists that in the long run, the classical dichotomy holds: changes in the money supply are neutral. However, because prices are sticky in the New Keynesian model, an increase in the money supply (or equivalently, a decrease in the interest rate) does increase output and lower unemployment in the short run. …
Furthermore, some New Keynesian models confirm the non-neutrality of money under several conditions.”
Oder diese Zusammenfassung :
” … a sequence of ‘new’ macroeconomic theories related to or opposed to Keynesianism have been influential. …
After World War II, Paul Samuelson used the term neoclassical synthesis to refer to the integration of Keynesian economics with neoclassical economics. The idea was that the government and the central bank would maintain rough full employment, so that neoclassical notions—centered on the axiom of the universality of scarcity—would apply. John Hicks‘ IS/LM model was central to the neoclassical synthesis. …
Later work by economists such as James Tobin and Franco Modigliani involving more emphasis on the microfoundations of consumption and investment was sometimes called neo-Keynesianism. It is often contrasted with the post-Keynesianism of Paul Davidson, which emphasizes the role of fundamental uncertainty in economic life, especially concerning issues of private fixed investment. …
New Keynesianism is a response to Robert Lucas and the new classical school. That school criticized the inconsistencies of Keynesianism in the light of the concept of “rational expectations”. The new classicals combined a unique market-clearing equilibrium (at full employment) with rational expectations. The New Keynesians use “microfoundations” to demonstrate that price stickiness hinders markets from clearing. Thus, the rational expectations-based equilibrium need not be unique.
Whereas the neoclassical synthesis hoped that fiscal and monetary policy would maintain full employment, the new classicals assumed that price and wage adjustment would automatically attain this situation in the short run.
The new Keynesians, on the other hand, see full employment as being automatically achieved only in the long run, since prices are “sticky” in the short run. Government and central-bank policies are needed because the “long run” may be very long.”
Falls es jetzt tatsächlich so aussieht als ob es hier ein Fortschreiten von schlechteren zu besseren Synthesen gegeben hätte, vertut man sich allerdings. Was die Makrooekonomie, also eben Volkswirtschaft, angeht ist der Konsens sogar innerhalb des Mainstreams eher dass “that there is trouble all round”.
Der mittlerweile berühmt – berüchtigte 2016 Artikel des seitdem Nobelpreisgekrönten Paul Romers beginnt so:
“For more than three decades, macroeconomics has gone backwards. The treatment of identification now is no more credible than in the early 1970s but escapes challenge because it is so much more opaque. Macroeconomic theorists dismiss mere facts by feigning an obtuse ignorance about such simple assertions as “tight monetary policy can cause a recession.” Their models attribute fluctuations in aggregate variables to imaginary causal forces that are not influenced by the action that any person takes. A parallel with string theory from physics hints at a general failure mode of science …”
Der (allerding neo-klassische) Nobelpreistraeger Robert Solow hatte sich schon 2009 ähnlich fundamentalkritisch geaussert :
“I do not think that the currently popular DSGE models pass the smell test. They take it for granted that the whole economy can be thought about as if it were a single, consistent person or dynasty carrying out a rationally designed, long-term plan, occasionally disturbed by unexpected shocks, but adapting to them in a rational, consistent way… The protagonists of this idea make a claim to respectability by asserting that it is founded on what we know about microeconomic behavior, but I think that this claim is generally phony. The advocates no doubt believe what they say, but they seem to have stopped sniffing or to have lost their sense of smell altogether.”
Auch Paul Krugman ist bekannt für seine gelegentlichen (selbst) kritischen Artikel, sowohl damals nach der Krise wie auch kürzlich wieder betreffs Globalisierung.
Krugman ist allerdings auch ein typisches TINA Subjekt: es ist ihm undenkbar sich aus dem Silo der Alternativlosigkeit zu befreien. Als er in 2016 plötzlich mal wieder “Macro” Vorlesungen geben soll findet sich Krugman in genau der Art von Regression welche die Post-Keynsianische Ur-Keynesianerian Victoria Chick ungläubig beklagt.
“… But the funny thing is” , schreibt Krugman in seinem NY Times blog “that while old-fashioned macro has increasingly been pushed out of graduate programs – it takes up only a few pages in either the Blanchard-Fischer or Romer textbooks that I am assigning, and none at all in many other tracts – out there in the real world it continues to be the main basis for serious discussion.”
Weil es sonst nichts gibt holt New Keynsian Krugmann das Neo Keynesian John Hicks’ IS/LM Modell aus der Schublade um es frisch aufzutischen. Warum?
“Why does the old-fashioned stuff persist in this way? I don’t think the answer is intellectual conservatism “
Das sieht Romer also falsch?
“Economists, in fact, are in general neophiles, always looking for something radical and different . Anyway, I have seen over and over again how young economists, trained to regard IS-LM and all that with contempt if they even know what it is, find themselves turning to it after a few years in Washington or New York. There’s something about primeval macro that pulls us back to it; if Hicks hadn’t invented IS-LM in 1937, we would end up inventing it all over again. …
Of course, this is all still a theory of “money, interest, and prices” (Patinkin’s title), not “employment, interest, and money” (Keynes’). To make the transition we must introduce some kind of price-stickiness, so that incipient deflation is at least partly translated into output decline; and then we must consider the multiplier impacts of that output decline, and so on. But the basic form of the analysis still comes from the idea of a three-good general-equilibrium model in which the three goods are “goods in general”, bonds, and money.
Sixty years on, the intellectual problems with doing macro this way are well known. First of all, the idea of treating money as an ordinary good begs many questions: surely money plays a special sort of role in the economy. Second, almost all the decisions that presumably underlie the schedules here involve choices over time: this is true of investment, consumption, even money demand. So there is something not quite right about pretending that prices and interest rates are determined by a static equilibrium problem. But... “
There is no alternative!
Not within the equilibrium paradigm, there isn’t. Why?
Maybe this helps:
“The Chicago school resolved the tension between Neo-Keynesian
theory and reality by insisting that reality must approximate
(equilibrium) theory. But since the Chicago school was as committed
to formalist methods as the Neo-Keynesians were, it could provide
no more of a theoretical explanation of how real-world market
economies could approximate full-employment equilibrium
than Samuelson could plausibly explain how an unemployment
equilibrium came into being. Perfect markets were a presumption,
not a conclusion of New Classical economics, just as rigid unemployment
was a presumption of Neo-Keynesianism.”
Writes Peter J. Boettke in his exceptionally impressive deconstruction: “Where Did Economics Go Wrong? Modern Economis As A Flight From Reality.” (39/42) Shortly after Boettke concludes that,
“… New Keynesians appear to be satisfied with having put
rational-choice foundations under Keynes’s conviction that market
adjustments alone cannot solve unemployment. Like rational-expectations
theorists who developed elaborate “proofs” of how the
(Neo-)Keynesian picture could not be true, the New Keynesians
start with the assumption that it (or something very much like it)
must be true, and then try to explain how this “reality,” as Krugman
puts it, might have come to be. In the end, then, the New Keynesians
are as ideological as the Chicago school. “
Heteros wie die Hayekians or Austrians machen bei diesem DSGE Spielchen eh nicht mit. Nochmal wikipedia:
“Austrians reject DSGE modelling. Critique of DSGE-style macromodelling is at the core of Austrian theory, where, as opposed to RBC and New Keynesian models where capital is homogeneous capital is heterogeneous and multi-specific and, therefore, production functions for the multi-specific capital are simply discovered over time. L. H. White concludes that present-day mainstream macroeconomics is dominated by Walrasian DSGE models, with restrictions added to generate Keynesian properties:
- Mises consistently attributed the boom-initiating shock to unexpectedly expansive policy by a central bank trying to lower the market interest rate. Hayek added two alternate scenarios. [One is where] fresh producer-optimism about investment raises the demand for loanable funds, and thus raises the natural rate of interest, but the central bank deliberately prevents the market rate from rising by expanding credit. [Another is where,] in response to the same kind of increase the demand for loanable funds, but without central bank impetus, the commercial banking system by itself expands credit more than is sustainable.
Hayek had criticized Wicksell for the confusion of thinking that establishing a rate of interest consistent with intertemporal equilibrium also implies a constant price level. Hayek posited that intertemporal equilibrium requires not a natural rate but the “neutrality of money,” in the sense that money does not “distort” (influence) relative prices. …
Post-Keynesians reject the notions of macro-modelling typified by DSGE. They consider such attempts as “a chimera of authority,”
Damit also zu den Post Keynesianern :
“The term “post-Keynesian” was first used to refer to a distinct school of economic thought by Eichner and Kregel (1975)[5] and by the establishment of the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics in 1978. Prior to 1975, and occasionally in more recent work, post-Keynesian could simply mean economics carried out after 1936, the date of Keynes’s General Theory.
… Post-Keynesian economists are united in maintaining that Keynes’ theory is seriously misrepresented by the two other principal Keynesian schools: neo-Keynesian economics, which was orthodox in the 1950s and 60s, and new Keynesian economics, which together with various strands of neoclassical economics has been dominant in mainstream macroeconomics since the 1980s. Post-Keynesian economics can be seen as an attempt to rebuild economic theory in the light of Keynes’ ideas and insights. However, even in the early years, post-Keynesians such as Joan Robinson sought to distance themselves from Keynes and much current post-Keynesian thought cannot be found in Keynes. Some post-Keynesians took a more progressive view than Keynes himself, with greater emphases on worker-friendly policies and redistribution. Robinson, Paul Davidson and Hyman Minsky emphasized the effects on the economy of practical differences between different types of investments, in contrast to Keynes’ more abstract treatment. …
The theoretical foundation of post-Keynesian economics is the principle of effective demand, that demand matters in the long as well as the short run, so that a competitive market economy has no natural or automatic tendency towards full employment.[8] Contrary to the views of new Keynesian economists working in the neoclassical tradition, post-Keynesians do not accept that the theoretical basis of the market’s failure to provide full employment is rigid or sticky prices or wages. Post-Keynesians typically reject the IS–LM model of John Hicks, which is very influential in neo-Keynesian economics. …
The contribution of post-Keynesian economics has extended beyond the theory of aggregate employment to theories of income distribution, growth, trade and development in which money demand plays a key role, whereas in neoclassical economics these are determined by the forces of technology, preferences and endowment. In the field of monetary theory, post-Keynesian economists were among the first to emphasise that money supply responds to the demand for bank credit,[10] so that a central bank cannot control the quantity of money, but only manage the interest rate by managing the quantity of monetary reserves.
This view has largely been incorporated into monetary policy, which now targets the interest rate as an instrument, rather than the quantity of money. In the field of finance, Hyman Minsky put forward a theory of financial crisis based on financial fragility, which has received renewed attention.
There are a number of strands to post-Keynesian theory with different emphases. Joan Robinson regarded Michał Kalecki’s theory of effective demand to be superior to Keynes’ theories. Kalecki’s theory is based on a class division between workers and capitalists and imperfect competition. Robinson also led the critique of the use of aggregate production functions based on homogeneous capital – the Cambridge capital controversy – winning the argument but not the battle.” …
Ja die berüchtigte (UK) Cambridge versus (US) Cambridge Controversy, in der Joan Robinson won the argument but… the rest is history.
“The essence of the debate revolved around the fundamental premises of the theories of value, distribution, and growth, each of which depends upon an aggregate production function where the inputs or factors of production for capital and labor are aggregated in some fashion prior to the determination of the rate of profit (interest) and the wage rate. According to neoclassical theory, the price of each factor of production is determined by its marginal contribution to production; furthermore, there exists substitutability between factors of production that gives rise to diminishing returns. As a consequence, the rate of profit (or interest) is the price of capital and as such reflects capital’s relative scarcity; more specifically, a relative abundance of capital, in combination with the law of diminishing returns of a factor of production (whereby the greater use of an input will imply a lower marginal product, other things being equal) will give rise to a low rate of profit (interest). The opposite would be true in the case of a relative scarcity of capital. Capital income would amount to the product of the rate of profit times the amount of capital employed. …
Piero Sraffa pointed out that there was an inherent measurement problem in applying the neoclassical model of value and income distribution, because the estimation of the rate of profit requires the prior measurement of capital. The problem is that capital—unlike labor or land, which can be reduced to homogenous units stated in their own terms (for example, hours of the same skill and intensity or land of the same fertility)—is an ensemble of heterogeneously produced goods, which must be added in such a way as to enable a cost-minimizing choice of techniques. From the various alternatives, neoclassical theory chooses to measure capital goods in value terms; that is, the product of physical units (buildings, machines, etc.) times their respective (equilibrium) prices. Joan Robinson (1953), inspired by Sraffa’s teaching and early writings, and later Sraffa himself (1960), argued that the value measurement of capital requires the prior knowledge of equilibrium prices, which in turn requires an equilibrium rate of profit that cannot be obtained unless we have estimated the value of capital. …
The writings of Piero Sraffa were a significant influence on the post-Keynesian position in this debate, though Sraffa and his neo-Ricardian followers drew more inspiration from David Ricardo than Keynes. Much of Nicholas Kaldor’s work was based on the ideas of increasing returns to scale, path dependency, and the key differences between the primary and industrial sectors. …
Paul Davidson follows Keynes closely in placing time and uncertainty at the centre of theory, from which flow the nature of money and of a monetary economy. Monetary circuit theory, originally developed in continental Europe, places particular emphasis on the distinctive role of money as means of payment. Each of these strands continues to see further development by later generations of economists.
Modern Monetary Theory is a relatively recent offshoot influenced by the macroeconomic modelling of Wynne Godley and Hyman Minsky’s ideas on the labour market, as well as chartalism and functional finance.”
Flassbeck Verorten
Wenn Flassbeck auf den Seiten 114ff die Grundzüge einer neuen Oekonomie skizziert, möchte er sich nicht in die demand – vs supply – side economics einordnen, da eben nicht nur das Angebot die Nachfrage schafft, sondern auch umgekehrt.
Eigentlich geht es auch gar nicht um Angebot versus Nachfrage sondern darum ob die oekonomische Theorie, wie die NeoKlassik, von einem vorgegebenen gesamtwirtschaftlichen Einkommen ausgeht, oder nicht, wie der (New + Post ) Keyseanismus. Entweder gibt es invariante Bewegungsgesetze oder nicht, und man muss entscheiden ob man Roboter oder Menschen studieren will. Wer letzteres anstrebt findet Hilfe bei Paul Davidson’s non – ergodischen System und Wolfgang Stützel‘s Saldenmechanik. (Seite116)
Davidson! Stützel ?! Aha! Das ist Flassbeck’s Doktorvater : “Wolfgang Stützel coined the concept of Macroeconomic Mechanics of Balances (Volkswirtschaftliche Saldenmechanik).
Among other things, balances mechanics enabled the theories of John Maynard Keynes in which he argued that government deficit spending can be necessary during a deflationary depression to be placed on a formal, structural arithmetic foundation based on accounting identities. Stützel used balances mechanics to explain how a deflationary depression results from aggregate planned revenues from sales of goods being greater than aggregate planned expenditures on purchasing goods. He also showed on the same basis how an inflationary exuberance results from aggregate planned expenditures for purchasing goods being greater than aggregate planned revenues from sales of goods. He, therefore, not only explained the validity of Keynes’ theory of demand-driven output and employment but also showed that it applies only in the special case of a buyer’s market situation.
Also sind die Saldenmechaniker vielleicht eine Deutsche Post Keynesianische Sonderschule?
Ist die Saldenmechanik im Widerspruch zur berüchtigten Quanitity Theory of Money, zumindest innerhalb der Nationaloekonomie?
“Balances Mechanics considers the mechanics of private credit creation and recognizes the Credit Mechanics, which comes from Otto Pfleiderer and Wilhelm Lautenbach. From the mechanics of giving a credit it becomes obvious: Once a debtor uses its credit entry, which corresponds to a liability, as payment for a purchase at the market, by Balances Mechanics this creates a surplus of the debtors expenses over its revenues. With that the remainder of the economy has a surplus of revenues over expenses. …
(Siehe Keen vs Krugmann unten)
This business relationship (temporarily) created new fiat money (if the seller does not use the received money to pay back own active debts) and in tendency leads to national economy value added.
This relativises common statements by classic theories which claim that so called capital collector locations would loan deposits from savers to debtors. Because the surplus of expenses of a debtor enables additional property to the economy (lowering liabilities, increasing monetary property) it is valid to say I=>S, in no case the opposite.”
Die “Anerkennung des Kreditmechanismus” hört sich erstmal gut an und die Saldenmechanik passt zu Minsky und Keen oder den Geldreformern in dem sie eine Dynamik der Gelkreation und des Geldumlaufs in den Vordergrund stellt? Die Graphik unten stellt zumindest den Kredit Kreislauf so ähnlich da wie man das immer bei Positive Money oder auch MMT sieht.
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Man sieht es immer wieder: es geht in der Oekonomie ums Geld: was zählt als (echtes, nicht nur Ersatz-) Geld, und : Ist Geld nur der Schleier (vor’m fundamentalen Tauschgeschäft) oder ist es eher umgekehrt die fundamentale Dynamik hinter dem Schleier des Marktes?
Und Flassbeck’s Geldkapitel (225) fängt ja auch an mit diesem Geldzählen und er meint er muss erstmal gegen die Steinzeit Position argumentieren die behauptet nur Zentralbankgeld sei reales Geld etc.
Ich sage “Steinzeit Position”, aber in der “Money is (mostly) Neutral” Version hat sie ja das ewige Leben eines Zombie’s. Siehe noch 2018 Keen vs Krugman betreffs endogenous/exogenous money and zB posts on QE
Unter den Defekten des zweistufigen Banksystems (230) findet er dann auch das Haftungsprinzip und fragt sich welchen Sinn dann die kommerzielle Kreditvergabe überhaupt noch hat. (231)
Aber Vollgeld kommt ihm nicht in die Tüte, zumindest nicht a la Huber, der zwar viel Vernünftiges sagt, was aber leider “Alles ins Leere geht…” da es sich beim Vollgeld um einen verkappten Supermonetarismus handelt der nichts vom Scheitern des Freedmanschen Monetarismus gelernt hat und auf die Krücke des objektiven Produktionspotenzials angewiesen ist etc
Zu Guter Letzt
Nicht dass ich ein Fan des Vollgeldes wäre, aber Flassbeck’s eher unwirsch grobe Kritik an Huber passt mir als Gelegenheit ein paar abschliessende kritische Bemerkungen zu machen:
Erstens kann man sagen dass der 80er Monetarismus gescheitert ist weil er die reale Geldschöpfung erst wieder empirisch entdecken musste?
Zweitens dass Flassbeck kein normaler Post Keynsianer ist wenn er meint das Geld folge der realwirtschaftlichen Nachfrage? Also hier ist er bei Krugmann und nicht bei Keen, also pre Minsky?
Drittens kann man sagen dass Huber dem Geld die Warenform entziehen möchte, Flassbeck aber Geld als Ware vorraussetzt, wenn er die Zinspolitik als fundamentale Dynamik aufstellt? Eigentlich seltsam denn später kritisiert er ja Menger etc
Ähnliche Widersprüchlichkeiten trifft man öfter bei Flassbeck, zb wenn er über die currency markets redet. Der Widerspruchstypus ist immer derselbe und ähnlich wie bei den Glassperlenoekonomen: Eigentlich sollte die Oekonomie so oder so funktionieren, aber tatsächlich tut sie es idiotischerweise nicht weil … (in Flassbeck’s Inszenierung agieren die blöden Politiker gerne als “exogenous shocks”) . Diese “irrationale” Realität ist aber kein Grund die Ableitung der angeblichen “Eigentlichkeit” in Frage zu stellen.
Viertens was Huber’s naive Version der Quantitätstheorie angeht trifft Flassbeck insofern einen Huberschen Schwachpunkt als man bei Huber nie gernau weiss welche Version der Quantitätstheorie ihm als fundamental gültig gilt?
Im übrigen entspringt die de facto Bedeutungslosigkeit der (hart wörtlichen) Quantitätstheorie nicht lediglich aus der Unwissbarkeit der “korrekten” Geldmenge, sondern eben gerade auch aus der “Unwissbarkeit” der real zirkulierenden, also das Kreditgeld mitzählenden, Geldmenge.
Fünftens, was “die Krücke” des objektiven Produktionspotenzials angeht sagt er letztlich: da man es nicht wissen kann muss man es den (Privat)Banken überlassen, denn nur sie sind ja vor Ort und können konkrete Projekte beurteilen.
Naja also wirklich? Das ist dann wieder der hyper – naive Glaube an die effiziente Kreditallokation des “dezentralen” Privatkapitals. Was ja gerade heutzutage erst recht ein Witz ist wo der örtliche Bankmanager mit seinen beim Golfspiel erarbeiten Intimkenntnissen längst durch zentral vorgegebene Kreditvergabeschablonen ersetzt wurde.
Angeblich soll ja Marx gemeint haben wenn es die “invisible hand” gibt dann sind es die Banken, die er aber letztlich auch primär als Intermediaries, nicht als Geld schaffende und primäre zuweisende sieht?
Ja also wie der “nicht-ergodische” Saldenmechaniker Heiner Flassbeck in die Schulenlandschaft der Oekonmie passt ist mir weiterhin nicht ganz klar. Denn Flassbeck stellt ja nicht die Saldenmechanik oder auch die Dynamik der Kreditproduktion als potentielles Fundament einer neuen Oekonomie in den Vordergrund, sondern eher die Produktivität/Inflation Korrelation als “Ausgangspunkt einer umfassenden Theorie” ? (52, 316)
Zur abschliessenden Besinnung ein Goethe Zitat von einer Webseite wo so ziemlich alle oekonmischen “Schools of Thought” im historischen Überblick zu sehen sind: “Jede Denkschule ist wie ein Mann, der hundert Jahre lang mit sich selbst gesprochen hat und sich über seinen eigenen Verstand freut, wie dumm er auch sein mag.”
(J.W. Goethe, 1817, Principles of Natural Science)
Heiner Flassbeck
Artikel
ineteconomics.org/ 2012 Sleepwalking with Heiner – A Response to Heiner Flassbeck’s questions about the Institute’s Council on the Euro Crisis By Rob Johnson
In the Financial Times Deutschland on Aug. 1, Dr. Heiner Flassbeck raised some serious questions about the INET Council on the Euro Crisis (ICEC) and its diagnosis and prescription for euro-zone change. I welcome the challenge of such a creative thinker as Flassbeck and am interested in the remedies that he proposes to heal the patient called Europe.
Flassbeck feels that the ICEC’s initiative may have come too late to save the euro zone. I share that fear. He goes on to say that “the ICEC signatories are caught up in the most obsolete thinking patterns the world knows.” It is this latter claim that I take issue with. (Although I also write this with the caution that I have only seen an English language translation of what Flassbeck wrote in German.)
But before addressing his proposed remedy, which focuses on wages, I would like to address his criticism of the ICEC, in particular his challenge to the importance of capital flows and to how relative unit-labor costs have diverged in the different countries within the euro zone.
A Response to Heiner Flassbeck’s questions about the Institute’s Council on the Euro Crisis
In the Financial Times Deutschland on Aug. 1, Dr. Heiner Flassbeck raised some serious questions about the INET Council on the Euro Crisis (ICEC) and its diagnosis and prescription for euro-zone change. I welcome the challenge of such a creative thinker as Flassbeck and am interested in the remedies that he proposes to heal the patient called Europe.
Flassbeck feels that the ICEC’s initiative may have come too late to save the euro zone. I share that fear. He goes on to say that “the ICEC signatories are caught up in the most obsolete thinking patterns the world knows.” It is this latter claim that I take issue with. (Although I also write this with the caution that I have only seen an English language translation of what Flassbeck wrote in German.)
But before addressing his proposed remedy, which focuses on wages, I would like to address his criticism of the ICEC, in particular his challenge to the importance of capital flows and to how relative unit-labor costs have diverged in the different countries within the euro zone.
Ä/ä, Ö/ö, Ü/ü.