Get your stinking corpse back in the crypt.

No, I’m telling you you did us the favor of finishing your thought in English. You didn’t finish your thought in the math statement. How do you expect us to respond? If I provided you with a sentence that had no verb and mangled grammar and spelling and offered it as proof that pure prose economics isn’t ideal, how convinced would you be?

RE: “Lord Kuehns,…” etc. etc.

First, I like my new name a lot. Second, notice it’s not just me that thinks you’re wrong on this. And nobody is saying that prose is a bad way to do economics either. We’re just saying that, as with everything, there are tradeoffs you make by relying exclusively on prose.

But you people have been telling me that “math was the international, universal language of logic” and plain English inadequate to its needs.

And now you tell me that you need English, the language of logic, to understand the math, and I’m the one who’s behind?

Lord Kuehns,

You and I have had this discussion many times before. The outcome has always been the same. You fought and ran away, so you could live to fight another day. But, as far as I’m concerned, you were slaughtered a long time ago, and I don’t go on fighting ghosts.

That’s all for you.

And note that with mathematics you have to clearly state all your assumptions or else they stand out like a sore thumb. When you abuse language like this you conceal those assumptions – which is a huge part of the reason why lots of economists prefer a heavy dose of mathematical formalism.

You’re asking us to compare a complete, contextualized statement in the vernacular to an incomplete, uncontextualized mathematical statement. What the hell do you expect the answer to be? Once again, you’re posing the question in a way that assumes your own conclusions.

And after a little more googling, it doesn’t even seem to be mathematics in general – it’s specifically an arithmetic theorem.

But we shouldn’t take this too far – it has been generalized to any formal semantic system. ie, “Not Wrong”, in that regard at least.

Here is a quotation from a very famous economic treatise.

“V sub script 1, O subscript 1 + P subscript 1 = M subscript 1, and T subscript 1.”

Can you tell me if it’s right or wrong, and, why?

Here, from a not so famous one:

“There’s demand for apple pies, but none for mud pies, so they won’t be worth a red cent, no matter how much labor has gone into them.”

Can you tell me if that’s right or wrong, and why?

I hope you realize that is a condemnation of people, not of mathematics.

I’m sure you are quite capable of comparing it you your example and discerning the meaning of the symbols. Had I translated your example into Chinese, it would not have been any more or less an example of “what’s wrong” with anything.

I’ll let you sink your own ship DG, but attacking mathematics does not serve you–trust me.

I don’t know of you think too much or too little of mathematics. Ultimately it is about the rational use of concepts–a consistent way of thinking. And mathematics is just a subset of that dealing with quantities.

Let me put it another way. Instead of decrying mathematics in general (a futile tactic, BTW), why don’t you instead limit your attack those who claim that 2+2=5?

Wrong.

Sorry, but here I am, 77 years old, and still can’t resist the temptations of a 12 year old.

I’m like the John Carradine character in The Grapes of Wrath, Casey, the preacher, confessing his sins to the Henry Fonda character, Tom Joad.

“Why, I had the girls so glory shouting they about passed out. Go to comfortin’ ‘em, and wind up lovin’ ‘em. Knowed I shouldn’t a done it, but, next time, do it again.”

That’s me, an incorrigible juvenile.

Sorry, and thanx for your forbearance.

”…mathematics is simply an abridged form of counting…

…one number by itself is not mathematics. Mathematics implies at least two yielding a third…”

Thank you for proving me right about poor understanding of what mathematics is. It sounds like you are describing arithmetic, which is an extremely tiny portion of mathematics.

Confusing human beings with atoms and molecules, and economics with physics, the mathematical economists would apply the analytical method of physics to human action. But there are no equations in economics. If you and I exchange my A for your B, it is only because I value your B more than my A and you value my A more than your B. If we both valued A and B equally, there would be no exchange, for nothing could be gained by it.

If mathematics and logic lead to the same conclusions in economics, they are redundant, and, the foreign language of mathematics, pointless. If they lead to different conclusions, you must choose between them, and acceptance of the one is rejection of the other. And since mathematics is simply an abridged form of counting, mathematical economics implies counting in place of thinking. But there is nothing to count, for the passing data of economics is irrelevant to its eternal truths. There is nothing to calculate, for there are constant relations between cause and effect but not between the magnitudes of the causes and effects.

Without examples of any of the actual numbers in their alleged calculations, the mathematical economists hide behind symbolic allusions to them, or reference to an isolated number, such as the number of dollars circulating at a given time. But one number by itself is not mathematics. Mathematics implies at least two yielding a third. Without them, they must finally pretend that they are somehow counting without numbers or measuring without magnitudes. To such absurdity is “mathematical economics” finally reduced.

Nullifying distinctions nullifies meaning and is an admission that you don’t have any. To those who cannot see a difference between mathematics and non-mathematics, I can only say that I see it, and regret that I cannot give sight to the blind.

What is the purpose of blurring the distinction between logic and mathematics, other than to bury the one in the other?

This is just another part of the whole “progressive” assault upon traditional authority and convention, upon language, logic, law, morality, schools, churches, and even the family, upon anything standing between the self-appointed masters of our new educational and social order and those they wish to dominate.

Real economics is still the same simple logical and literary science as in the days of Smith and Ricardo, and, mathematization, not a “maturing” but a blurring of it.

Even the schools most steeped in it cannot start out with mathematical mystification. It is the last refuge of an artificial authority, running and hiding from logic, and, the prestige of its adepts, a demonstration once more that the best way to become an “expert” is by saying something with absolutely no meaning.

“What they are doing is vain playing with mathematics symbols, a pastime not suited to convey any knowledge.”

Ludwig von Mises

Your larger point about the non-validity of quantities in economics would be much more effective if you’d drop the anti-mathematics tirade. If you mean numbers don’t apply and aren’t required say so, don’t drag all of mathematics into it. People might still disagree, but at least they’d be discussing your point instead of your misuse of terms.

I’ll give you this: Kuehnsian is still worth more than Keynesian economics, and you make Lord Keynes look like a commoner.

I was wondering when you’d chip in with your two cents worth, which, at that, overstates its value.

YOUR analysis, not THE analysis. Whenever anyone gives you an example you always say “well that’s not a valid example because it has quantities and there are no quantities in economic analysis”. Yours is always a proof by definition – a definition that you’ve concocted.

I think Mankiw is being a little inaccurate with his three groups. There are really only two (if we ignore the Skidelsky’s of the world that are simply historians impressed with Keynes the man). Krugman, for example, is every bit as much the New Keynesian that Mankiw is. And who is the biggest uber-liberal “Keynesian” out there right now? Joe Stiglitz. Stiglitz laid the foundations of the New Keynesian school. New Keynesianism is all about a toolbox of frictions that can explain various things, and I’d guess about two thirds of those frictions have Stiglitz’s name on them. The General Theory is still a nice nostalgic read and still makes good points, but the world is really not divided between Keynesian die hards, Keynesian detractors, and the sensible middle. The Keynesian die hards have learned a lot over the years and modified their perspective, and now it’s largely divided between New Keynesian types and the detractors.