I mean, seriously.
By being logical, and true.
The same is true of calculus anyway. Both Newton and Leibniz stumbled across it at the same time more or less and independently (contrary to Newton’s protests.)
Yes. Like others said: It’s based on logic, which is the same all over the world, and the state of economic theory is at all times the same all across the world.
Jeffersonianatheart:
“By being logical, and true.”
I disagree with you. Austrian economics is logical, and true. Yet Paul Krugman is rich, b****. ** Head scratch **. That CAN’T be right. I know that in my bones. And, yes, it is not comfortable. There’s a glitch in the matrix it seems…Has been for a looooong time.
On the other hand, subjective value theory was literally discovered, as if fire, at very nearly identical times, in 3 geographically distant regions, among which intellectual ideas traveled slowly (I’m somewhat sure about his ‘slowly’ part).
What’s the explanation for this?
Edit: But, maybe I’m 100% wrong, and the whole thing was an inside job–as in, somehow, everybody heard about what the others were doing. This seems kinda far-fetched.
Krugman’s economic thinking is crucially tied into his political views. Altering one means abandoning the other. As he’s not quite ready to give up on fascism yet, so his fallacies stay.
Jon Irenicus:
The same is true of calculus anyway. Both Newton and Leibniz stumbled across it at the same time more or less and independently (contrary to Newton’s protests.
Wow, that’s cool. Who was it that had the dream where God told him something like “The way to exercise dominion over the earth is by means of length and width.” I thought it was Newton, but it may be Decartes, or even someone else.
Azure:
Krugman’s economic thinking is crucially tied into his political views. Altering one means abandoning the other. As he’s not quite ready to give up on fascism yet, so his fallacies stay.
Apples and oranges. Krugman is Krugman because he is persuasive. If logic ruled the day—were logic the coin of the realm—Austrian economics would be the obvious choice for the mass of hazy-headed inflationists (Keynes, his forebears, and his progeny). But Austrian economics does not carry the day…hasn’t since, when, Hayek contra Keynes? Therefore, neither does logic. Something else is guiding this ship.
yes, that was surely a hand of God.
MaikU:
yes, that was surely a hand of God.
We know for certain it isn’t logic.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” - from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
I’m not arguing it IS God. But, what makes you so sure it isn’t?
Bcycl, the reason why mainstream economists are so huge compared to AE is because they offer political prostitution services to the establishment. For state colleges, the state funds research. For private universities, the state influences research by offering prizes and prestigious advisory jobs.
So there is logic in all this madness, even when there is none in the mainstream theories themselves 
Consultant,
Dude, you’re not seeing where this particular rabbit hole goes. You must read Murray Rothbard on the origins of the Fed. I think it’s in Rothbard’s The Mystery of Banking, where he describes how in order to persuade the public (via academia…perhaps think tanks also) of the need for a central bank, certain private interests, in concert with government if I’m not mistaken, bought and paid for a false pretense of academic imprimateur for their (likely selfish, imo) schemes. Meaning, they had an army of people working on their behalf throughout academia, all in support of a statist/Fed-centered private agenda. A little too conspiratorial for you? The argument makes me uncomfortable, tbh. Doesn’t’ mean it’s wrong. Indeed, it WOULD explain a lot of things, if it were true. (Hey, string theory can’t be proven either, but it explains, like literally everything in physics.) Rothbard, by the way, doesn’t merely speculate on this matter either. I’m not trying to convey that. He makes a persuasive case.
I mean, when you think about it, it blows your mind. But, once you step back for another second, it makes a lot of sense that this is the way things would be. And don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying it’s good, either, btw. I’m just saying I could see reasons why—given the structure of our government, combined with human nature, we would be likely to end up in such a society.
Bcycl,
It’s not so much a conspiracy as a set of incentives working together. Universities follow the money. Politicians like funding reports that make them indispensible. Central bankers like postponing the crisis until they can retire. Etcetera.
This does not mean these people actively work together against “the people” or anyone. They simply work for themselves. I fail to see hoow analyzing incentives constitutes a conspiracy theory. There is no need for anyone to conspire to some big doomsday scenario for it to occur.
Consultant:
It’s not so much a conspiracy…
…Politicians like funding reports that make them indispensible. Central bankers like postponing the crisis until they can retire. Etcetera.
How do politicians know which reports to fund?
Consultant:
I fail to see how analyzing incentives constitutes a conspiracy theory.
It does when analysis of incentives points to a conspiracy. I’m not necessarily talking about academia as currently incentivized. I’m talking about the history of the origin of the Federal Reserve System. I believe Rothbard argues that a conspiracy occurred which provided the false intellectual justification for the Fed to the public. At the time, there WAS a public debate about the merits of a central bank. The big bankers wanted the Fed established to socialize their risks. You can’t imagine a scenario in which rich bankers would invest lots of resources to sway public opinion and legislation to their favor? I believe the financiers, according to Rothbard, relied on the political movement of Progressivism—that’s right, anti-capitalism—to sell their message to the public.
I wouldn’t tell you this, if I hadn’t found Rothbard’s account at least somewhat persuasive. You should read it, and judge for yourself.
It’s very common for great ideas to be discovered independently at about the same time. Not sure where to search for this. In math, many theorems are named after two people. Sometimes it because one generalized the other’s work, but sometimes it’s because they discovered it independently.
It may be because each generation builds on the discoveries of the earlier ones, so that the stage is set at the same time for everyone.
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Politicians simply keep funding those researchers that have proven useful to them in the past.
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Yeah, central bankers have a huge incentive indeed to install a central bank. I certainly buy that.
It’s just that conspiracies like 33rd degree freemasons, Bilderberg Group, Zionist agenda, UN Eugenics, … are not necessary, although they are possible (but impossible to verify). Key is that incentives alone are sufficient for a huge monetary crisis to occur.
So let’s all hope there is no conspiracy to crash the USD. That would be murder on an epic scale (if the reserve currency crashes, all trade stops, milions of unprepared people will starve). It’s possible, but not needed for my worldview to be consistent.
Smiling Dave:
It may be because each generation builds on the discoveries of the earlier ones, so that the stage is set at the same time for everyone.
This seems a reasonable explanation. I want to learn more about the particular case of subjective value theory, though. Just to sratch the itch.
Consultant:
Yeah, central bankers have a huge incentive indeed to install a central bank. I certainly buy that.
Not central bankers. Financiers. Monied, private interests. Think Rockefeller and Morgan, back in the day. Today, I wouldn’t know who’s running the show.
…conspiracies are not necessary
Agreed.
…incentives alone are sufficient for a huge monetary crisis to occur.
Definitely. I’m talking about first causes. i.e. the first causes of the establishment of the Fed. I think first causes are important to understanding potential solutions, as in preventing history from repeating itself were similar circumstances to arise in the future, or perhaps as in dismantling the current, flawed institution before even more significant problems arise.
The “first cause” you’re looking for - the “glitch in the matrix” that has you scratching your head - is none other than the existence of state itself. Central banks are just as much help to the state as vice versa.