Re: game theory

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Ted writes:>... I pointed to Marxâs idea of life in âthe realm
of freedom,â i.e. life as the activity of appropriating and creating
beauty and truth within relations of mutual recognition, as the
ultimate criterion for judging âsuccess.â  Individuals are more or less
successful to the extent that they manage to live such lives.

>Such a life requires the kind of development indicated in the idea of
the âuniversally developed individual.â  This is the ârationalâ
individual; an idea of rationality very different from the idea of
rationality in game theory.  Rationality requires a capacity to
perceive truly.<

This is akin to Aristotle's vision of the (ultimate) ideal life within the ideal _polis_. Alas, under capitalism, success is defined differently. (Not by me, but by society.)  But that's not "success" in any transhistorical sense of the word. Under capitalism, "succcess" involves alienation in Marx's sense of the word. 

>Psychopathology, in the sense Iâm using the term, always means
irrationality of a greater or less degree, an irrationality
characterized by an inability to perceive truly because of the
influence of unconscious phantasy.  It canât, therefore, be functional
to âsuccessâ defined in the above way.< 

But it can be functional to specifically _capitalist_ success, at least if it's something like "anti-social personality disorder" (commonly termed "sociopathy" or "psychopathy"). 

>On these foundational assumptions, individuals can hold mistaken
irrational beliefs about their self-interest. This will be the case,
for instance, if they are greedy.  Moreover, irrationality about ends
is necessarily associated with some degree of irrationality about
means. This isnât inconsistent with, for example, individuals being
very successfully greedy e.g. making lots of money.  Their
psychopathology wonât have been functional to the achievement of this
success, however.  Had they been less psychopathological, they would
have been more successful and, as part of this, less greedy.< 

these beliefs aren't always "mistaken" or "irrational" within the context of the social system (social formation) in which they live and work. For example, within the context of capitalism, self-centered greed is quite rational, despite the fact that it reflects one's alienated situation in society.

On the other hand, within the context of capitalism, acting on one's ultimate or transhistorical rationality (as you use this term) could easily be dysfunctional or undermining of _capitalist_ success. It would be hard to get a job, for example. 

>This way of understanding individuals is inconsistent with
understanding them as [having] utility functions.<

No-one believes that people _are_ utility functions. For example, the NC economist instead believes that people _have_ them, as statements of their goals (preferences). The maximization of utility (of goal-attainment) is "rationality" in the sense of instrumental rationality. 

>  Its understanding of
rationality and psychopathology canât be expressed in terms of the
latter.  Its understanding of a psychopath, for instance, can't be
expressed as a utility function without a conscience.<

NC economists -- who see people as utility maximizers -- can't deal with psychopathology at all. They don't study psychology, except perhaps behaviorist crap. (One NC book I read [by Gandolfi, Gandolfi, and Barash]  based its psychology in genetics. It went far beyond the normal NC standards of BS.) The NC conception of psychology is tautological or almost so.

>As it understands psychopathology, the utility function conception of
self and others is itself psychopathological.  The conception splits
self and others into externally related fragments (the "goods" that
constitute the content of the function) and subjects them to
obsessional control (the "mathematics").  Splitting, the attack on
linking (that constitutes the fragments as externally related) and
obsessional control are defences against persecutory anxiety.<

I agree.

>The idea of "the realm of freedom" that emerges from this is radically
inconsistent with Marx's.  Mirowski, for instance, locates Arrow's
impossibility theorem within the socialist calculation debate and
interprets it as demonstrating that  "dictatorial or imposed regimes"
would be better able than democratic voting to realize "the realm of
freedom" interpreted in utility function terms as "the welfare optima."<

I think Arrow's point is that _no_ method of social decision-making (including markets and dictators) works well.
BTW, I don't see how this discussion is relevant to our discussion. So I'll drop the last paragraph.

Jim Devine