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It’s not possible to state ahead of time what the entire new paradigm will be, but the following features are fundamental. The new paradigm will:
be fundamentally monetary, in contrast to the false, moneyless barter model that underlies Neoclassical economics;
acknowledge that the economy is a complex system, not an equilibrium system;
be consistent with the fundamental physics known as the Laws of Thermodynamics;
be grounded in empirical realism, rather than the fantasy of ‘as if’ assumptions about reality; and
be based on the techniques of system dynamics and related non-equilibrium analytic approaches.
I explore each of these theses in the following chapters. What follows is a Manifesto, both because it is a call for change in economics every bit as emphatic as Martin Luther’s call for the reform of the Christian religion, and also because it states my own distinctive approach to economics. However, this approach has been guided by the genuine giants of economics, philosophy and mathematics who influenced me, and I hope I do them justice in both the text and the many references on which it is based.
Lastly, this book makes heavy use of the modelling program I have designed, which I named Minsky in honour of the great Post Keynesian economist Hyman Minsky. I encourage you to download Minsky yourself, and use it to run the models in this book as you read about them here. The Minsky program (which runs on Windows, Apple and Linux PCs), all the models in this book, and a free manual, Modelling with Minsky, are available at http://www.profstevekeen.com/minsky/.
Notes
1 1 It is often also called ‘mainstream economics’. There are divisions within Neoclassical economics, especially between self-described ‘New Classicals’ and ‘New Keynesians’. Even more confusingly, some ‘New Keynesians’ claim that they are not ‘Neoclassical’, and in fact use it as a term of abuse towards ‘New Classicals’.
2 2 The campaign was supported by 300 of the registered 1,800 academic economists in France, one-third of whom were economic historians, while the rest were economists.