Superphysics
The Exact Sciences and the Order of People Who Live by Profits
November 18, 2013 5 minutes • 999 words
Table of contents
Flaw 2: Economics is created from the point of view of the exact physical sciences instead of the inexact social sciences, and for those who live by profit
The absurd principles of the marginal revolution were later set in stone through Marshall’s Principles of Economics (1890) and was further expanded by Knut Wicksell (Interest and Prices, 1898) and Irving Fisher (The Purchasing Power of Money, 1911). In an effort to formalize such absurd principles as an exact science, Marshall, following the footsteps of Jevons, made a critical mistake of calling them “economic laws”, imposing the Monetary dogma and purging the invisible hand from the new science of economics:
Economics and business students, unfortunately, have since equated such inexact “statement of tendencies” with exact scientific laws or dogmas which cannot be changed. These mathematical “get-rich-quick” principles gave new power to big US banks and corporations in the 1920’s and allowed the profusion of nominal value vehicles—money, stocks, investments trusts (Taibbi, 2009)—until the US economy crashed back to its real value in 1929, marking the start of the Great Depression.
| Economic System | Academic Start | Country Actual Start, Country | End | Lifespan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capitalism | Principles of Economics | British (1890) | Establishment of Fed on December 23, 1913 | US Oct. 29, 1929 (Crash of 1929) |
| Communism | Communist Manifesto | German (Feb, 1848) | Establishment of the Soviet Union on December 28, 1922 | USSR Dec. 26, 1991 (Fall of Soviet Union) |
| Global Capitalism | The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, British (February 1936) | Establishment of Bretton Woods on July 22, 1944 | US Between 2010-2020 | around 70 years |
W. S. Jevons and Alfred Marshall, intellectuals who favored the exact sciences, have unfortunately turned economics into more of a physical science instead of rightfully keeping it as an inexact social science as what Adam Smith had done.
Never did Smith, nor any ancient Eastern philosopher, have the audacity to draft their own economic laws or even create mathematical formulations for human behavior as, perhaps, they knew that the human mind cannot be constrained by concepts made by itself.
Unlike other economists, Smith did not put a price on people:
A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him…
Mr. Cantillon seems, upon this account, to suppose that the lowest species of common labourers must every where earn at least double their own maintenance, in order that one with another they may be enabled to bring up two children; the labour of the wife, on account of her necessary attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient to provide for herself…
Cantillon adds that the labour of an able-bodied slave is computed to be worth double his maintenance; and that of the meanest labourer, he thinks, cannot be worth less than that of an able-bodied slave.
Thus far at least seems certain, that, in order to bring up a family, the labour of the husband and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common labour, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in that above mentioned, or in any other, I shall not take upon me to determine..
The economist-authors of the marginal revolution of the 1800’s inherited the Monetary Dogma from the Mercantile system and clothed it in new Capitalist trappings, permanently infusing it with the corporation and mercantile spirit. Instead of gold and silver, the nominal values in the form of paper money and paper stocks became the new obsession and, like Mercantilism, created a new economic system that benefited only the rich:
As economic activity works best in civilized societies for the greater goal of attaining true happiness, the invisible hand of human dharma will work best if all sectors of all societies have a say in economic policy without the exclusive spirit of corporation nor the imposition of restrictive economic laws and arbitrary valuations.
