Re: value, exchange-value, revolutionary action

[Allin Cottrell <cottrell@xxxxxxx>]

Jon is right, there is no inherent logical connection between
the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems and the favoring of
the market system, though there may be a contingent association
in the case of the Santa Fe group.

Incidentally, I greatly enjoyed Gleick's book on chaos when it
first came out (as I have enjoyed his recent biography of
Feynman), and the prospects sounded very exciting.  Since that
time, though, I have found the applications of 'chaos' in economics
to be rather disappointing.  Yes, there may be some quite interesting
models; but, unlike the case of physics, it would seem to be more
or less impossible to separate stochastic behavior from genuine
deterministic chaos in economic data.  The physicists can assemble
thousands of relatively noise-free data-points and test for the
presence of strange attractors, but nothing like this can be done
in economics.  The econometric work that has been done, trying to
find nonlinear structure in the residuals from linear equations,
seems to me a big yawn.

==========================
Allin Cottrell
Department of Economics
Wake Forest University
cottrell@xxxxxxx
(910) 759-5762
==========================




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