[lbo-talk] Mathematics and Formalism in Economics

Mike Beggs mikejbeggs at gmail.com
Mon Aug 29 03:49:04 PDT 2011


On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 12:09 AM, Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com> wrote:


> In the field of monetary economics, he's successfully managed to
> expand and update Marx's theory of money (well, I have my qualms with
> his presentation, but agree mostly with his main results) to include
> fiat money in a modern capitalist economy.  He got into these issues
> early on, as a student.  His dissertation is about the monetary
> mechanism and public financing.  He very carefully deconstructed the
> macro monetary paradigm of the late 1960s and 1970s, as presented in
> Patinkin's Money, Interest, and Prices.  From a Marxist perspective,
> he took part in some sort of seminar with people on the West Coast
> that included Suzanne de Brunhoff.  (After working for the MIT, he
> moved at Stanford in the 1970s, I think.) Unfortunately, an important
> part of Duncan's work in this field remains unpublished.  Some of his
> results were going to make it to the 2nd volume of his Growth and
> Distribution, but I have no idea what happened to the completion of
> that project.  (I recently lost track of one of his old unpublished
> manuscripts while transferring my files from computer X to computer Y,
> so I had to ask him to resend it to me, and -- based on the comments
> in his reply -- I believe he still considers that work to be on solid
> footing.  Yet, no hint on whether he's going to polish and publish
> that stuff anytime soon.)

Great, I hope he does. I've read quite a bit of his Marxian stuff on money and I like it also. Marx had a long-period theory of the price level in gold standard conditions, and felt no need to develop a short-period theory. Foley is good on what happens if you relax the gold anchor assumption. What are your qualms re: the presentation?

In the interview (which is actually ten years old now) Foley has this to say:

"I think [integrating money into economic theory] is like Odysseus's journey of return from Ithaca. Constantine Cavafy's poem 'Ithaca' addresses Odysseus's feelings when he finally reaches Ithaca after ten years. Cavafy says, you know Ithaca is not a grand place, you've been to more amazing places, you've seen the bizarre and the glittering jewels; Ithaca is just a small island. The last lines of the poem say, don't ask too much from Ithaca; it has given you a beautiful journey. I learned a lot about theories of money. I don't think I am any near to the synthetic view of money that I was looking for. That's one of the big lacunae in economic theory. [So you haven't reached Ithaca yet?] No, and I probably never will."


> One thing is that Duncan, aside from his own research agenda and
> teaching, is extremely busy (and immensely helpful!) as an extra-mile
> mentor, pushing students through their dissertation traumas.  The guy
> has a depth of warmth and humanity that endears him to his students.

It's always nice to hear someone whose work you admire is also a really good guy!

Mike



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