Marx, Keynes andthe economics of the 99%

John WeeksProfessor Emeritus SOAS, University of Londonhttp://jweeks.org

Forthcoming book(October 2013)

Economics of the 1%: How mainstream economics

serves the rich, obscures

reality and distorts policy

Anthem Presswww.anthempress.com

(£13.95/US$ 18.95)

For the technical version of today's presentation, see John Weeks, The Irreconcilable Inconsistencies of

Neoclassical Economics: false paradigm

(Routledge 2012)

and

"Effectiveness of Monetary Policy Reconsidered,"

Review of Political Economy (Issue 1, 2013)

Lionel Robbins specifies the problem:

Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between given ends and scarce means which have alternative uses. (Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (London: Macmillan 1932), p16)

J M Keynes specifies the problem When I began to write my Treatise on Money I was still moving along the traditional lines…I had made some progress towards pushing monetary theory back to becoming a theory of output as a whole. But my lack of emancipation from preconceived ideas showed itself in what now seems to me to be the outstanding fault of the theoretical parts of that work, that I failed to deal thoroughly with the effects of changes in the level of output. (Keynes, The General Theory, 1936, vi-vii, emphasis added)

What is the difference & why does it matter?

(It is for real, go to www.astrology.org.uk)

versus

(also for real,www.alchemystudy.com)

Versus

EconomicsVersus

"Neoclassical economics"[aka Fakeconomics]

What is economics?

I propose:

The study of the mobilization of resources to achieve full employment and maximum feasible output, in order to increase the general welfare.