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Category Archives: A New Paradigm
Letter to The Bureau of Economic Analysis
The Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics Collaborative
Website: Bernard Lonergan’s Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics
https://functionalmacroeconomics.com
functionalmacroeconomics@gmail.com
Brian C. Moyer, Director
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
4600 Silver Hill Road
Washington, DC 20233
Dear Mr. Moyer,
Presently the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) publishes three general versions of the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA).
- Gross Domestic Product, Current $
- Gross Domestic Income by Type of Income; National Income by Type of Income; and, National Income by Sector …; Current $)
- Gross Value Added by Sector; Current $)
Would it be possible for the BEA staff to develop a fourth which would be explanatory of the production-and-exchange process? Continue reading
Lonergan stands alone. No one else systematizes the explanatory functional distinctions.
Lonergan is alone in advancing through the field of macroeconomics to the level of system. His analysis is a strictly functional, purely relational, new paradigm of macroeconomics. (Continue reading)
The IS-LM, AD-AS, and Phillips Curve Models
In this section, we are contrasting familiar textbook models of macrostatic equilibrium, with Lonergan’s explanatory theory of macrodynamic equilibrium. We are contrasting a macrostatic toolkit with a purely relational field theory of macroeconomic dynamics. Lonergan discovered a theory which is more fundamental than the traditional wisdom based upon human psychology and purported endogenous reactions to external forces. His Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics is a set of relationships between n objects, a set of intelligible relations linking what is implicitly defined by the relations themselves, a set of relational forms wherein the form of any element is known through its relations to all other elements. His field theory is a single explanatory unity; it is purely relational, completely general, and universally applicable to every configuration in any instance. (Continue reading)
The Process is Always the Current, Purely Dynamic Process, etc. (See full title specification below.)
The process is always the current, purely dynamic process. The analysis is purely functional, purely relational and explanatory analysis. The theory is general and universally applicable to concrete determinations in any Instance; The theory is a normative theory having a condition of equilibrium.
Our subheadings in this treatment are as follows:
- Always the Current Process:
- A Purely Dynamic Process Requiring a Dynamic Heuristic:
- A Purely Functional Analysis:
- A Purely Relational, Explanatory Analysis:
- A Theory, General and Universally Applicable to Concrete Determinations in Any Instance:
- A Normative Theory Having a Condition of Equilibrium:
Always the Current Process: Continue reading
Efficient Cause vs. Formal Cause
The “formal cause” of the economic process is its immanent intelligibility. The formal cause consists in the primary relativities or general laws of the process, which hold in any number of instances. In the formal cause we apprehend many things as one; we grasp all in a unified view. The formal cause contains the normative theory but explains both equilibria and disequilibria. Particular boundary conditions, such as past and future prices and quantities are relatively insignificant for the analysis; these boundary conditions are further determinations that are contingent from the very fact that they have to be obtained from a non-systematic manifold. (CWL 3, 491-6/) Continue reading
The Emergence of Science
Lonergan, like Euclid, Newton, and Mendeleyev, moved through his field of inquiry to the level of system.
(Given the failure to implement the basic expansion,) the systematic requirement of a rate of losses will result in a series of contractions and liquidations. … [CWL 15, 155]
… a science emerges when thinking in a given field moves to the level of system. Prior to Euclid there were many geometrical theorems that had been established. The most notable example is Pythagoras’ theorem on the hypotenuse of the right-angled triangle, which occurs at the end of book 1 of Euclid’s Elements. Euclid’s achievement was to bring together all these scattered theorems by setting up a unitary basis that would handle all of them and a great number of others as well. … Similarly, mechanics became a system with Newton. Prior to Newton, Galileo’s law of the free fall and Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion were known. But these were isolated laws. Galileo’s prescription was that the system was to be a geometry’; so there was something functioning as a system. But the system really emerged with Newton. This is what gave Newton his tremendous influence upon the enlightenment. He laid down a set of basic, definitions, and axioms, and proceeded to demonstrate and conclude from general principles and laws that had been established empirically by his predecessors. Mechanics became a science in the full sense at that point where it became an organized system. … Again, a great deal of chemistry was known prior to Mendeleev. But his discovery of the periodic table selected a set of basic chemical elements and selected them in such a way that further additions could be made to the basic elements. Since that time chemistry has been one single organized subject with a basic set of elements accounting for incredibly vast numbers of compounds. In other words, there is a point in the history of any science when it comes of age, when it has a determinate systematic structure to which corresponds a determinate field. [CWL 14, Method, 1971, 241-42]
