Ever wondered what trait most affects your income? Turns out it’s your rank in a hierarchy.

Blair Fix

If the history of science has taught us anything, it’s that we can’t trust our preconceptions about how the world works. All human societies have developed stories about their place in the cosmos. Almost without exception, these stories were wrong. True, we’ve killed many of the old myths. But the process was slow and excruciating. Humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years.

What Trait Affects Income the Most?

I take a break from political economy and talk computer science.

Today I’m going to take a break from political economy and talk about computer science. The reason? Nowadays a large part of doing science involves writing code. Scientists write code to collect data, to analyze it, to plot it and to run models that explain it. Suffice it to say that modern scientists (myself included) spend a lot of time coding. Computing is, in many ways, about repetition. It’s about doing a task over and over.

In the Beginning … There Were Loops

I revisit the productivity-income quagmire.

Today I’m going to revisit a topic that a month ago I committed to stop writing about — the productivity-income quagmire. Neoclassical economists argue that income is proportional to productivity. The problem is that they have no way of measuring productivity that is independent of income. So in practice, they test their theory by assuming it’s true.

Productivity and Income … Again

I discuss my research on income and hierarchy with Steve Keen and Phil Dobbie

Last week, Steve Keen and Phil Dobbie were kind enough to invite me on
their [Debunking Economics
Podcast](https://debunking.podbean.com/){target="_blank"}. We discussed
my research on income inequality and hierarchy. You can listen to the
episode here:

::::::: {.jetpack-video-wrapper}
:::::: {.iframe}
::: {#player}
:::

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# An error occurred. {#an-error-occurred. .message}

::: {.submessage}
[Try watching this video on
www.youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBjUYHEMUCI){target="_blank"},
or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.
:::
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You can also listen at Steve's [patreon
page](https://www.patreon.com/posts/hierarchy-of-37289306){target="_blank"}.

Some back story. Reading Steve Keen's book [*Debunking
Economics*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debunking_Economics){target="_blank"}
was one of the reasons I got interested in economics. So it's always
exciting to talk to one of your intellectual heroes.

I was also lucky enough to have Steve serve as the external examiner for
my PhD defense. Since then, he's been a tireless advocate for my
research. When you're taking on the economics orthodoxy, it's always
nice to have someone on your side. What's more, Steve was my very first
patreon supporter. Thanks Steve!

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Last week, Steve Keen and Phil Dobbie were kind enough to invite me on their Debunking Economics Podcast. We discussed my research on income inequality and hierarchy. You can listen to the episode here: An error occurred. Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser. You can also listen at Steve’s patreon page. Some back story.

Guest on the Debunking Economics Podcast

I show how hierarchy grows with economic development — something that neoclassical economics says shouldn’t happen.

I’ve finally had the time, over the last few weeks, to formalize some of the ideas that I’ve been developing on this blog. This is the result — a new paper that studies how hierarchy grows with economic development. You can download the pdf here.

 The 100-word summary

. Neoclassical economists claim that the free market is the optimal form of social organization.

Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market

What if the free market has never been about freedom?

As social animals, humans live and die by the success of our groups. This raises a dilemma. What’s best for the group is often not what’s best for individuals within the group. If you’re surrounded by a group of trusting individuals, it’s best for you to lie and cheat. You’ll increase your relative fitness. And in evolutionary terms, that’s what matters.

The Free Market as a Double Lie

I’ve gotten rid of ads on Economics from the Top Down

Greetings readers. For some time now, I've been uncomfortable with the
fact that WordPress (who hosts this site) inserts ads into the content.
It's annoying. But more importantly, it goes against much of what this
blog stands for.

My goal in this blog is to do *science* --- to dispassionately look at
the evidence. Having ads cheapens (or at least distracts from) this
goal. So for some time, I've been thinking about getting rid of ads.

Today I finally did it. I got rid of ads on Economics from the Top Down.
As part of this change, you'll also notice a new domain name. The site
is now called
[economicsfromthetopdown.com](economicsfromthetopdown.com){target="_blank"}
(not
[economicsfromthetopdown.wordpress.com](economicsfromthetopdown.com){target="_blank"}.
Don't worry about changing your browsing habits. The old domain will
forward to the new one.

I want to thank the
[patrons](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/supporters/){target="_blank"}
of Economics from the Top Down for making this possible. Your donations
more than offset the costs of getting rid of ads.

On another note, I've been posting here less frequently than in the
past. This isn't because I've stopped writing. (I've been writing more
than ever.) It's that my focus has changed. The blogosphere is full of
short posts that are surface deep. Going forward, I'm going to buck this
trend. I'm going to create in-depth posts that dig deep into the chosen
topic.

I have two reasons for doing this. First, it's how I think. I'm a
big-picture thinker who wants to tie many strands of evidence together.
You can't do this in a short post. Second, in-depth material is more
useful for rethinking economics. So going forward, most posts on this
blog are going to be long.

Speaking of long posts, I have a mammoth one coming down the pipes. It's
going to take a fresh look at free-market ideology. Stay tuned.

\[Cover image:
[@negativespace](https://www.pexels.com/@negativespace){target="_blank"}
and [Wikimedia
commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:X_mark.svg){target="_blank"}\]

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Greetings readers. For some time now, I’ve been uncomfortable with the fact that WordPress (who hosts this site) inserts ads into the content. It’s annoying. But more importantly, it goes against much of what this blog stands for. My goal in this blog is to do

 science

— to dispassionately look at the evidence. Having ads cheapens (or at least distracts from) this goal. So for some time, I’ve been thinking about getting rid of ads.

No More Ads

I discuss biophysical constraints on our ability to cope with the current pandemic.

Back in January, physicist [Brian
Stewart](https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/bstewart/profile.html#){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"} asked me to give a talk to his "[Radical
Sustainability](https://owaprod-pub.wesleyan.edu/reg/!wesmaps_page.html?stuid=&crse=009415&term=1201){target="blank"
rel="noopener"}" class at Wesleyan University. The talk was to be in
early April, and Brian offered to fly me to Connecticut for the
occasion. Luckily I decided at the time to give the lecture virtually.
So when the coronavirus forced us all to stay home, nothing much
changed.

On that note, here's a video of the talk. I decided to make it relevant
to our current situation, so I discussed how biophysical economics
relates to the coronavirus pandemic.

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::: {.submessage}
[Try watching this video on
www.youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfbSq17INQs){target="_blank"},
or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.
:::
::::
::::::
:::::::

\[Embarrassing technical note: pop-up windows on my screen (which I've
edited out) cut off a few of the slides. You can download the original
slides
[here](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/fix_biophysical_corona.pdf){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}.\]

**Referenced links:** 
[Wikipedia article on modern monetary
theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"} 
[Interview with L. Randall
Wray](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sd-ElKMbPI){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"} 
[Vox article on modern monetary
theory](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/16/18251646/modern-monetary-theory-new-moment-explained){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}

### Summary

As I see it, there are two constraints on our ability to deal with the
coronavirus pandemic. The first constraint is *money*. This gets all the
press right now --- and rightly so. To slow the spread of the
coronavirus, millions of people are staying home from work. Since we
don't want these people to starve, we need to somehow give them money.
But where should this money come from?

While this appears like a monetary constraint, it's actually a *social*
constraint. Money is a social fiction that we can create and destroy at
will. So at the societal level, 'not having enough money' isn't a real
constraint. No, the real constraint is about who has the *power* to
create and distribute money. We usually give most of this power to the
private sector. (Banks create the majority of money when they issue
credit.) We forget that the government can also create money.
Fortunately, many governments of the world are rediscovering this power,
and are paying their citizens to stay at home.

While this (apparent) monetary constraint is on the top of our minds,
there are also *biophysical* constraints on how we can deal with the
coronavirus pandemic. These biophysical constraints are little
discussed, but they're more fundamental than the lack of money.

These biophysical constraints have to do with industrialization, which
has greatly changed the structure of society. Some of this social change
makes coping with pandemics easier. Some makes it harder.

Let's start with the bad. Two hundred years ago, most people lived in
rural areas. This made it easy to keep your distance from other people
(if you had to). Now the vast majority of us live in cities, making it
hard to stay away from other people. So urbanization has made it more
difficult to fight pandemics.

Fortunately, another demographic change offsets the affects of
urbanization. To slow the spread of the virus, many of us are being paid
to sit at home and do nothing. Two hundred years ago this would have
been impossible. Why? Because at the time, most people were farmers. If
they didn't go to work, the population would starve. So a sweeping
'stay-at-home' order would have been impossible.

<figure class="wp-block-image">
<img
src="https://i0.wp.com/economicsfromthetopdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/us_pyramid-e1586860194534.png?resize=723%2C333&amp;ssl=1"
class="wp-image-1441" loading="lazy" decoding="async"
data-attachment-id="1441"
data-permalink="https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/us_pyramid/"
data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/economicsfromthetopdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/us_pyramid-e1586860194534.png?fit=3317%2C1528&amp;ssl=1"
data-orig-size="3317,1528" data-comments-opened="1"
data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}"
data-image-title="us_pyramid" data-image-description=""
data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;us sector pyramid&lt;/p&gt;
"
data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/economicsfromthetopdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/us_pyramid-e1586860194534.png?fit=300%2C138&amp;ssl=1"
data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/economicsfromthetopdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/us_pyramid-e1586860194534.png?fit=723%2C333&amp;ssl=1"
data-recalc-dims="1" width="723" height="333" />
<figcaption>Figure 1: The demographic inversion in the
US. The sector composition of the US in 1800 (left) and in 2010
(right). [Source: <a
href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/157974/1/bna-426_20150000_fix_rethinking_economic_growth_theory_preprint.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rethinking Economic Growth Theory from a
Biophysical Perspective</a>]</figcaption>
</figure>

Now things are different. As Figure 1 shows, the US has undergone an
astonishing 
demographic inversion. The vast majority of people now work in the
service sector. This means that many of us can simply not work. Sure,
without a large service sector we can't get our lattes or our manicures.
But we won't starve.

So the coronavirus pandemic is forcing us to run a vast social
experiment. The research question is this: in the short run, how many
jobs can society do without? The answer, it would appear, is an awful
lot.

### Further Reading

Fix, B. (2015). *Rethinking economic growth theory from a biophysical
perspective*. Springer.

Graeber, D. (2018). *Bullshit jobs--a theory*. Penguin.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Back in January, physicist Brian Stewart asked me to give a talk to his “Radical Sustainability” class at Wesleyan University. The talk was to be in early April, and Brian offered to fly me to Connecticut for the occasion. Luckily I decided at the time to give the lecture virtually. So when the coronavirus forced us all to stay home, nothing much changed. On that note, here’s a video of the talk.

Biophysical Economics and the Coronavirus Pandemic

Economics from the Top Down is 1 year old

Today is the [one year
anniversary](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2019/04/11/economics-from-the-top-down/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"} of *Economics from the Top Down*. To mark the occasion,
I though I'd share with you the 5 most-viewed posts of the last year:

**Top 5 Posts**

1.  [No, Productivity Does Not Explain
    Income](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2019/07/08/no-productivity-does-not-explain-income/){target="_blank"
    rel="noopener"}
2.  [Productivity Does Not Explain
    Wages](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2019/11/14/productivity-does-not-explain-wages/){target="_blank"
    rel="noopener"}
3.  [Debunking the 'Productivity-Pay
    Gap'](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/01/17/debunking-the-productivity-pay-gap/){target="_blank"
    rel="noopener"}
4.  [An Evolutionary Theory of Resource Distribution (Part
    1)](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2019/09/06/an-evolutionary-theory-of-resource-distribution-part-1/){target="_blank"
    rel="noopener"}
5.  [Real GDP: The Flawed Metric at the Heart of
    Macroeconomics](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2019/04/29/real-gdp-the-flawed-metric-at-the-heart-of-macroeconomics/){target="_blank"
    rel="noopener"}

You'll notice that these posts have a common theme: they're all about
*productivity*. More specifically, they're about why productivity has
nothing to do with *income* (either for individuals or for whole
nations).

It seems that readers of this blog are thirsty for alternatives to the
neoclassical theory of income. And for good reason. The idea that income
stems from productivity is one of the defining ideologies of our time.
We worship at the altar of productivity, largely to the benefit of the
wealthy and powerful.

The other thing I notice about these top 5 posts is that they're
primarily criticisms. They critique neoclassical theory, but don't
necessarily provide alternatives. (The exception is [An Evolutionary
Theory of Resource
Distribution](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2019/09/06/an-evolutionary-theory-of-resource-distribution-part-1/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}.) Criticism is important, of course. But going forward,
I'm going to focus on developing alternatives to neoclassical theory.
The reality is that old theories die only when better options comes
along.

### Thank you

Over the last year, the response to this blog has exceeded my
expectations. I was used to writing scientific papers read by a few
hundred people. Imagine my surprise when readership of this blog topped
that value by several orders of magnitude.

More and more I see *Economics from the Top Down* as my primary research
outlet. Of course I continue to publish scientific papers. But what I
enjoy most is communicating my findings to a general audience.

Looking ahead, I have many projects on the docket. One that stands out
is something that, in the blogging world, may seem heretical. I'm going
to try to explain, in simple terms, a complex model that I developed in
my [PhD thesis](https://thesiscommons.org/7uqw9/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}.

The model is about how income relates to hierarchy. It took me years to
develop, and it's something that I struggle to explain even to other
scientists. I've had many a peer reviewer misunderstand the model. So
one of my goals, in the next year, is to explain this model to
non-specialists. Time will tell if I'm successful.

If you're a regular reader, thanks for being part of this adventure. (If
you really enjoy my writing, consider [becoming a
patron](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/membership/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}.) If you're a new reader, welcome. There's lots more to
come.

\[Cover image: [Phil
Varney](https://www.flickr.com/photos/84225480@N05/15136415434/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}\]

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(Blair Fix) and link to [Economics from the Top
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Today is the one year anniversary of

 Economics from the Top Down

. To mark the occasion, I though I’d share with you the 5 most-viewed posts of the last year:

 Top 5 Posts

No, Productivity Does Not Explain Income Productivity Does Not Explain Wages Debunking the ‘Productivity-Pay Gap’ An Evolutionary Theory of Resource Distribution (Part 1) Real GDP: The Flawed Metric at the Heart of Macroeconomics You’ll notice that

One Year of Blogging

I recount the difficult lives of a few revolutionary scientists. And I discuss some career tips for doing revolutionary science in a hostile world.

In this two-part post, I’ve been reflecting on the challenges of doing revolutionary science. (See Part 1 here.) I’ve argued that revolutionary science — the practice of questioning the core principles of an accepted theory — is difficult for a simple reason. To do it, you must fight the instinct to

 conform

. Conformity is the glue that holds human groups together. It’s what underpins the rule of law and the norms of trade.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar