Economists-Moral Philosopers

Adam Smith-The Wealth of Nations Karl Marx-Das Kapital

The Classics

• Adam Smith : The Wealth of Nations/ Theory of Moral Sentiments • Karl Marx: Capital, Communist Manifesto

Adam Smith

• • • • Division of Labor is Key

Labor is the basis of wealth; The division of labor implies economic interdependence. Markets are self-regulating systems for the orderly coordination of the division of labor.

Adam Smith

• Invisible Hand

Adam Smith

• Invisible Hand – Assumptions: – Our preferences are consistent – We act based on self-interest – Individual Good adds up to Social Good Government Ensures Property Rights.

Adam Smith

• Invisible Hand – Assumptions: – Enough buyers and sellers as for there not to be a monopoly

• Invisible Hand – Assumptions: – Perfect Information that backs up our economic decisions

• Invisible Hand – Assumptions: – No Externalities

But first…

So…how is it that, as you are saying Mr. Smith, if value is originating in labor (therefore we need more workers and division of labor-population growth and economic growth), all of the profit is kept by factory owners?

Conflict theory

• All societies are divided into two groups – Owners – Workers • Our society is capitalist. – Owners are bourgeoisie – Workers are proletarians

Marx on history

‘

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.’

Owners and workers

• Owners exploit workers and live off the money which the workers earn • Members of classes bind together in the pursuit of their common interests.

• Workers put up with this inequality because: – They are oppressed wage slaves and cannot fight the system – They are indoctrinated by ideology and religion into believing what they are told by the powerful.

More from Marx

• Technical progress, the growth of knowledge, and conflict among classes all foster perpetual change.

• Capitalism as an economic system is irrational in the sense that it stands in the way of making good the ability of modern science and technology to meet human needs.

Conclusion

• Marxism is an understanding of the nature of social relationships which you are expected to evaluate. Recognise that it has strengths and weakness as a tool of understanding of our culture.

John Maynard Keynes

(1883-1946) • Born in 1883 in Cambridge, England • Son of John Neville Keynes – Neville was a professor of Economics and Logic at Cambridge Univ., and wrote on Economic Methodology • Won a scholarship to Eton • Boy Genius • Part of Eton’s social elite • Won a scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge • 1911, he became editor of the

Economic Journal

.

• Worked at the Treasury during WWI.

• 1921, he published

A Treatise on Probability.

This was his dissertation. It won him a fellowship at

Keynes, Inter-war Years

• Keynes wrote the

Economic Consequences of the Peace

(1919), regarding reparation payments – Best Seller – Made him a public celebrity • 1923,

Tract on Monetary Reform

standard) (against returning to the pre-war gold •

Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill

• 1930,

Treatise On Money

(1925, warned of depression) • Makes millions in the stock market, commodity, and forex markets.

• 1936,

General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

• 1937, he has a serious heart attack

The General Theory

“ I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely

revolutionize—not, I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years—

the way the world thinks about economic problems.”

-- John Maynard Keynes

Comment by Paul Samuelson

“It is a badly written book, poorly organized; any layman who, beguiled by the author’s previous reputation, bought the book was cheated of his 5 shillings. It is not well suited for classroom use. It is arrogant, bad-tempered, polemical, and not overly generous in its acknowledgements... In it the Keynesian system stands out indistinctly, as if the author were hardly aware of its existence or cognizant of its properties; and certainly he is at his worst when expounding on its relations to its predecessors. Flashes of insight and intuition intersperse tedious algebra. An awkward definition gives way to an unforgettable cadenza. When it is finally mastered, we find its analysis to be obvious and at the same time new. In short, it is the work of genius.”

The General Theory

a) b) c) d) According to the classical model, the consumer has insatiable wants.

The consumer sells his/her labor in exchange for enough income to buy the goods.

The money value of the incomes received must be equal to the value of the output produced.

So how can unsold goods pile up in warehouses, causing firms to lay off workers?

The General Theory

(2)

2.

Say’s Law cannot hold . (“Supply creates its own demand.”) a) If spending constraints are in effect, then there will be a difference between (unlimited) demand and “effective demand”.

b) Actual (effective) demand will usually be “deficient” to purchase total output.

The General Theory

(3)

• • The market system is not self-regulating: left to its own devices the market system fails to make sensible use of our productive potential. • Unemployment is a chronic problem in a capitalist economy. Government intervention in the economy can reduce unemployment and instability.

Ergo Fiscal and Monetary Policy!

Entrepreneurship and the Origins of Competitive Advantage

• Simple neoclassical microeconomic theory allows for little or no role for entrepreneurs • A firm is a production function; it transforms inputs into outputs • The way the firm transforms inputs into outputs is assumed to be technically and economically efficient

Entrepreneurship

• In reality, some firms exploit opportunities for creating profitable competitive positions that other firms either ignore or cannot exploit • Seizing such opportunities is the essence of entrepreneurship • Entrepreneurship involves discovery, innovation, and acting on the opportunities that discovery and innovation create (page 132): • “To undertake such things is difficult and constitutes a distinct economic function, first, because they lie outside the routine tasks which everybody understands and secondly because the environment resists in many ways that vary, according to social conditions, from simple refusal either to finance or to buy a new thing, to physical attack on the man who tries to product it.”

Creative Destruction

• Schumpeter believed that innovation causes most markets to evolve in a characteristic pattern • There are periods of relative stability, when firms that possess superior products, technologies, or organizational capabilities earn positive economic profits • These periods are punctuated by fundamental shocks or discontinuities that destroy old sources of competitive advantage (profits above the norm) and replace them with new ones • The entrepreneurs who exploit the opportunities these shocks create achieve positive economic profits during the next period of stability

The Long-Run Performance of the Economy

• According to Schumpeter, the process of creative destruction implies that static efficiency – the optimal allocation of society’s resources at a given point in time – is less important than dynamic efficiency – the achievement of long-term growth and technological improvement • What really counts is competition between new products, technologies, and organizational techniques, not price

Policy and Managerial Implications

• Schumpeter’s ideas have been used to defend monopoly, on the grounds that high economic profits are a necessary reward to encourage innovation, which results in higher long-run growth • Policy analysis should focus more on the impacts of policies on innovation and less on the impacts on prices and current welfare