Jeremy B. Rudd is an economist who's been working for the Fed since 1999.
He recently authored this critique of contemporary (Neoliberal) capitalism:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2021062pap.pdf (P.1)
"Mainstream economics is replete with ideas that 'everyone knows' to be true, but that are actually arrant nonsense. For example, 'everyone knows' that:
• Aggregate production functions (and aggregate measures of the capital stock) provide a good way to characterize the economy’s supply side;
• Over a sufficiently long span—specifically, one that allows necessary price adjustments to be made—the economy will return to a state of full market clearing; and,
"The theory of household choice provides a solid justification for downward-sloping market demand curves.
"None of these propositions has any sort of empirical foundation; moreover, each one turns out to be seriously deficient on theoretical grounds.1
"Nevertheless, economists continue to rely on these and similar ideas to organize their thinking about real-world economic phenomena.
"No doubt, one reason why this situation arises is because the economy is a complicated system that is inherently difficult to understand, so propositions like these—even though wrong—are all that saves us from intellectual nihilism."
"In his second footnote Rudd notes he's 'leaving aside the deeper concern that the primary role of mainstream economics in our society is to provide an apologetics for a criminally oppressive, unsustainable, and unjust social order.'"
He recently authored this critique of contemporary (Neoliberal) capitalism:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2021062pap.pdf (P.1)
"Mainstream economics is replete with ideas that 'everyone knows' to be true, but that are actually arrant nonsense. For example, 'everyone knows' that:
• Aggregate production functions (and aggregate measures of the capital stock) provide a good way to characterize the economy’s supply side;
• Over a sufficiently long span—specifically, one that allows necessary price adjustments to be made—the economy will return to a state of full market clearing; and,
"The theory of household choice provides a solid justification for downward-sloping market demand curves.
"None of these propositions has any sort of empirical foundation; moreover, each one turns out to be seriously deficient on theoretical grounds.1
"Nevertheless, economists continue to rely on these and similar ideas to organize their thinking about real-world economic phenomena.
"No doubt, one reason why this situation arises is because the economy is a complicated system that is inherently difficult to understand, so propositions like these—even though wrong—are all that saves us from intellectual nihilism."
"In his second footnote Rudd notes he's 'leaving aside the deeper concern that the primary role of mainstream economics in our society is to provide an apologetics for a criminally oppressive, unsustainable, and unjust social order.'"
