In the wake of the recent financial crisis heterodox economists have taken up a time-honored refrain and proposed to abandon the axiomatic method. The present paper argues that this proposal is self-defeating

Standard economic models are based on axioms that epitomize the fundamental behavioral assumptions. This approach is not conductive to convincing results. The suggested change of perspective is guided by the question: what is the minimum set of propositions for the consistent reconstruction of...

Between Keynes’s verbalized theory and its formal basis persists a lacuna. The conceptual groundwork is too small and not general. The quest for a comprehensive formal basis is guided by the question: what is the minimum set of foundational propositions for a consistent reconstruction of the...

A crisis is but a crisis when the long run outlook is definitively positive. Then a lower turning point must exist. This implicates a vision or, in the ideal case, a formalized theory of the money economy’s possible end states. This theory has to provide an endogenous explanation of end states...

Schumpeter had a clear vision of the developing economy, but he did not formalize it. The quest for a germane formal basis is in the following guided by the general question: what is the minimum set of foundational propositions for a consistent reconstruction of the evolving money economy? We...

Kalecki’s profit theory has always been popular among heterodox economist as an alternative approach to solve the paradox of monetary profits. In the present paper his formula ‘The workers spend what they get, the capitalists get what they spend’ is scrutinized for its logical and factual...

The present paper scrutinizes the logical foundation of Marx’s dialectic analysis of the evolving money economy. The minimalistic frame of reference is thereby given with the set of structural axioms. It turns out, first, that the commonplace notion of exploitation has to be replaced by...

Unemployment is usually explained with reference to the equilibrium of supply and demand in the labour market. This approach rests on specific behavioral assumptions that are formally expressed as axioms. The standard set of axioms is replaced in the present paper by a set of structural axioms....

Between Keynes’s verbalized theory and its formal basis persists a lacuna. The conceptual groundwork is too small and not general. The quest for a comprehensive formal basis is guided by the question: what is the minimum set of foundational propositions for a consistent reconstruction of the...

Part (I) and (II) of this paper reconstruct the quantity theory from structural axiomatic foundations. This yields a coherent view of the interrelations of quantity of money, transaction money, saving–dissaving, liquidity–illiquidity, rates of interest, leverage, allocation, prices, profits,...