One way valves are basically diodes, but for fluids rather than electrons. You can also make logic gates out of just diodes (or one way valves).
Imagine writing software for a hydraulic computer!
Imagine writing software for a hydraulic computer!
Sadly he is better know for a diagram he drew of an observation, the Phillips curve.
I fear that much like this hydraulic model, Steve Keen's work is likely to be ignored or ridiculed by future economists while they fret over religious X diagrams.
Largely out of the economic mainstream, since the 20th century, sadly.
At the same time, I almost feel like I shouldn't read the last book for a while, it's going to be really bittersweet.
https://bankunderground.co.uk/2015/06/30/banks-are-not-inter...
Almost all electric components can be replicated in pneumatics; capacitors, resistors, transistors, diodes (including Zener diodes)... And from that you can form simple logics.
One design we had to generate was to build a pneumatic gate which would open and close by pressing four buttons (two for each side of the gate) and light up a red, yellow or green light depending on whether or not the gate is moving (of course the lights use a pressure sensor).
Of course nobody builds that because such a system would be expensive compared to a Attiny with a shift register and a few relays capable of doing the same.
Do an image search for an automatic transmission valve body. It even looks like a big industrial circuit board. Some components are passive like a check valve, some are active like a valve which is operated by pressure from some other part of the circuit. Newer ones also have partial electronic control, with microcontroller-driven solenoids and actuators moving around valves to control hydraulic rams which finally engage or disengage clutches. But it all began with no electronics at all. Pretty neat trick if you ask me.
I remember being a kid taking apart my first Ford transaxle and being amazed by the sheer complexity, almost to the point where it seems biological. My dad bought a really bad one for a couple bucks at a junkyard. We didn't need it to fix anything, he just wanted to feed my curiosity. It was a great parenting move. I recommend doing it yourself if you find a cheap busted one, just to get the ideas flowing.
The analog of the fluid in that analogy is electric charge/current, not electrons which move in the other direction (which kinda breaks the analogy as a result).
I'd bet in a poll of the general public, most people think electrons fly around a circuit like water in a pipe, which is of course completely wrong. I guess it's debatable whether the inaccuracy matters or not. But in general, I prefer analogies that are simplifications and leave out details, rather than those that are completely ass backwards from reality.
If people transfer their incorrect understanding of water to incorrect knowledge of electricity, that doesn't make the analogy bad.
Ultimately though, this concept was the breaking point for my EE class; It's when half the class dropped out to other majors. Not that I blame the analogy entirely for this, I think in general this is the point at which a lot of people lose connection with deeper sciences. It's the point where analogies to the physical world (matter) break down because we're now fundamentally talking about energy, which doesn't obey the rules all humans are accustom to. The world where we can't see it or relate it to our daily experiences but only talk about it through mathematics.