Re: Mirowski and critiques

["James K. Galbraith" <lpgc403@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Underheated reply to overheated Nilsson:


Rhetorical flourishes? Perish the thought! Should everyone follow my lead?
Of course! And if they don't? Well, to the trash heap with them all, I say.


On serious notes, Mirowski does have a paper exploring the uses of network
theory in a setting of abstract institutional economics. I found it
interesting; those wishing to pursue the matter might request a copy (or a
citation to a published version) from Mirowski. The idea that an
institutional economics "requires" network theory is an overstatement; my
own work uses numerical taxonomy instead to identify empirical patterns of
institutional influence (e.g., over patterns of change in the wage
structure.) But Mirowski's case for introducing network analysis in this
field was, I thought, imaginative and insightful, if not as thoroughly
successful as MTHL.


The statement that no one was able to point to anything concretely
justifying game theory is a canard. I believe I did, at one point, mention the
prisoner's dilemma itself (surely the oldest idea in that book) and the
study of tit-for-tat as a rule in the conduct of repeated games. Someone
else mentioned the empty core. I found Peter Albin's work on cellular
automata fascinating, with applications in the study of patterns of housing
segregation, and much else besides.


Do new theories require new maths? In principle, they may not. But it seems
quite evident that a new math can have a powerful effect on the
development of a progressive research program around a new theory, and
therefore new theories based on a mathematical framework, or metaphor, will
have a powerful evolutionary advantage over non-mathematical constructs. Why
this is so may be an interesting study in the relationship of mathematics to
language. But it surely is so.
****

James Galbraith
The University of Texas at Austin
LPGC403@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
fax (512) 471-1835