Re: Dialectics and complexity

[Jon Beasley-Murray <jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 25 Aug 1995, Paul Cockshott wrote:

> The Santa Fe complexity theorists have a fairly explicit
> ideological bent towards showing the superiority of
> spontaneously evolved complex systems in human affairs,
> which are of course identified with the market capitalist
> economy.

The first part of this sentence is definitely true--complexity economics
seems for the most part a (fairly complex!) ideological justification for
the free market.

But why is this necessarily so?  I don't understand the "of course" in
the second half of Paul's sentence.  "Of course" the Santa Fe economists
identify self-organization and emergence with market capitalism, but
that's a function of their ideological blinders.  I see no reason to
follow them in this mistake.  Can not a commune be seen as an example of
self-organization?

Further, complexity economics deserves examination if nothing else
because it has (it seems to me) taken from marxist economics the position
of premier critic of (neo)classical economics--and indeed it criticizes
the latter at times for much of the same reasons (static modelling,
closed systems etc.).

Take care

Jon

Jon Beasley-Murray
Literature Program
Duke University
jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons


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