Between Keynes’s verbalized theory and its formal basis persists a lacuna. The conceptual groundwork is too small and not general. The quest for a comprehensive formal basis is guided by the question: what is the minimum set of foundational propositions for a consistent reconstruction of the...

Between Keynes’s verbalized theory and its formal basis persists a lacuna. The conceptual groundwork is too small and not general. The quest for a comprehensive formal basis is guided by the question: what is the minimum set of foundational propositions for a consistent reconstruction of the...

What do economists understand about the economy if they do not understand the profit phenomenon? Next to nothing. Therefore, the very first task in theoretical economics is to clarify the difference between profit and wage income and their respective determinants. It was Ricardo who tackled the...

For a host of compelling methodological reasons, homo oeconomicus has to be replaced. This is consensus, the open question is how this could be accomplished. What is required first is the separation of the formal foundations into a structural and a behavioral part. This paper introduces the...

The existence proof of general equilibrium, which is based on subjective-behavioral axioms, is replaced by the existence proof of a final turning point, which is based on objective-structural axioms. The final turning point is characterized by an irreversible switch from profits to losses for...

In a recent article, Keen resumes the debate with Krugman about the effects of debt upon the economy. It is hard to see how the question can be settled as long as all participants apply their idiosyncratic models. Hence the issue boils down, as Krugman rightly put it, to the deeper question:...

Efficient progress of the monetary theory of production (MTP) is hampered by an unsatisfactory account of how profit and interest emerge in the monetary circuit. As matter of fact, this question puzzled already the classics. It seems evident that it cannot be answered by applying the usual...

According to prevailing methodological criteria, standard economics is definitively refuted. Joan Robinson’s wake-up call “Scrap the lot and start again” has therefore lost nothing of its original freshness and urgency. Yet, how can the restart succeed? This inquiry builds on structural...

Jevons composed his value theory of nonenties. These creatures are elusive. Subsequent formal refinements did not eliminate the fundamental flaw but made it only harder to detect. A vacuous formal structure is one that cannot be interpreted in some domain. For want of any correspondence in the...

Standard economics starts with behavioral assumptions that are formally expressed as axioms. This approach met with little scientific success but still enjoys some popularity for lack of a convincing alternative. To replace the subjective formal foundations by objective structural axioms is the...