Economics from first principles - Steve Keen on: new book, neoclassical failures, Elon Musk and MMT

Video Description

In this conversation with Prof. Steve Keen ( @profstevekeen ) we talk about his new book in which he exposes some of the failures of neoclassical economics by building up simple economic models from first principles. Given that Elon Musk has often talked about the importance in engineering of thinking problems through "from first principles", Keen has used this framing to point out the irony of Elon Musk using the traditional, neoclassical "household budget" view of the government's finances given that this view is based on reasoning by analogy rather than first principles. In our conversation we go on to talk about the failures of academic economics to acknowledge the inaccuracies of the traditional neoclassical approach, despite the obvious theoretical and empirical flaws of the standard, textbook descriptions of how the economy works. We also talk about the rise in popularity of economics discussions in social media, such as the YouTube channels @garyseconomics and @RichardJMurphy , as suggesting a possible route through which the public narratives around economics might change despite academia being the gate keepers of university jobs and journals. In particular, there has been a growing public interest in neo-chartalist ideas like Modern Monetary Theory, MMT, which, to me, suggests that it may be possible to use social media to loosen the grip of neoclassical economics on our politics. ▬▬ Chapters ▬▬ 00:00 - Coming up ... 00:23 - Background of Prof. Steve Keen 03:08 - From first principles 08:20 - Textbooks wrong on bank loans 15:09 - Is academia changing? 21:30 - Academia vs social media 31:15 - Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) 32:17 - Academia ignoring central banks and data 39:02 - Markets, competition and costs per unit 48:22 - Ergodicity and international trade 1:02:49 - Modeling international trade ▬▬ Links to Steve Keen's work ▬▬ On Substack: https://profstevekeen.substack.com/ On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/profstevekeen On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@profstevekeen *New Book: Money and Macroeconomics from First Principles for Elon Musk and Other Engineers* On Amazon (US): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLWJ8LXY/ On Amazon (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FLWJ8LXY/ On Amazon (NL): https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0FLWJ8LXY/ Previous books on Amazon (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Steve-Keen/author/B001K87OZU ▬▬ Music ▬▬ Song: Valence - Infinite [NCS Release] Music provided by NoCopyrightSounds Free Download/Stream: http://ncs.io/infinite Watch: http://youtu.be/QHoqD47gQG8