Egmont Kakarot-Handtke refutes Axiomatic Economics

[Onion Eater]

Professor Egmont Kakarot-Handtke has written a rebuttal to Axiomatic Economics. He feels that he has found the "fundamental flaw" in Aguilar's reasoning and can dispense with all of Axiomatic Economics.

Axiomatic Economics: Kakarot-Handtke

Do you agree?

 

[shlunka]

Kakarot?! As in, Goku from Dragon Ball???

 

[Onion Eater]

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke is a professor of economics at the Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre und Recht Fakultät Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften Universität Stuttgart.

Professor Kakarot-Handtke represents the Post-Autistic Economics Network, which is opposed to the use of deductive logic.

 

[Mach]

I agree that Kakarot is from DBZ and that's that.

As to this, "Utility is a nonentity like angels, epicycles or unicorns. The shortest possible form of my argument is: Any axiom set that contains a behavioral notion like utility does not work."

Without any serious review of all the underlying work, it seems silly. I would think he could show how an axiom doesn't work by desmontrating how it leads to reliably false conclusions. He appears to claim that the human value choices "do not exist", or at least including them in a system would necessarily ensure such an axiomatic system would fail. He'd have to demonstrate why that is the case. Calling a bad premise a unicorn, seems silly. It's sufficient to show why it's false, labeling it a unicorn wouldn't change that.

The challenge for any such axomatic system would be to capitalize on its power and demonstrate not just in journals, but in some economic application, how badass it is. Or you could analyze existing conclusions from high profile papers or authors and find errors using your system, both taking them down a peg while simultaneously demonstrating the utility of your system. Is your system nearly all ecompassing as it relates to economics (the big stuff anyway)? Have you written a software simulator that uses it, etc?

 

[Onion Eater]

Have you written a software simulator that uses it?

Software Simulation for Axiomatic Economics

 

[Onion Eater]

Incidentally, I have added an illustration to mock Egmont Kakarot-Handtke's infatuation with unemployment statistics:



Statisticians think that mindlessly compiling reams of computer printouts with multiple columns of numbers printed in an 8-point font is doing "science," never mind the fact that all those numbers have absolutely nothing to say about the situation actually faced by the common working man or woman.

Most economists today, exemplified by Kakarot-Handtke, do not even know what logic argument is. If you asked them to prove even a very simple theorem like that the square root of 2 is irrational, they would be completely befuddled. Their idea of "proof" is to inundate the reader with a truckload of meaningless statistics.

Proof that the square root of 2 is irrational number

I can count on one hand the number of economists who can follow this simple proof that is being taught to home-schooled teenagers. It is really no wonder that these simpletons led us into a financial meltdown!