The Calculating Auctioneer, Enlightened Wage Setters, and the Fingers of the Invisible Hand

Abstract

The formal foundations of theoretical economics must be nonbehavioral and epitomize the interdependence of real and nominal variables that constitutes the monetary economy. This is a cogent conclusion from the persistent collapse of behavioral and real models. Conceptual rigor demands, first, to take objective-structural axioms as a formal point of departure and, secondly, to clarify the interrelations of the fundamental concepts income and profit. The present paper reconstructs the characteristic properties of a Walrasian economy in structural axiomatic terms, generalizes them and explores the consequences for our understanding of the working of the economy we happen to live in.

Keywords: new framework of concepts, structure-centric, axiom set, analytical rigor, market clearing, budget balancing, harmonic structure, deflationary bias

JEL Classification: D01, D46, D51