The Market as a Creative Process

Contributions in modern theoretical physics and chemistry on the behavior of nonlinear systems, exemplified by Ilya Prigogine's work on the thermodynamics of open systems (Prigogine and Stengers, 1984), attract growing attention in economics (Anderson, Arrow, and Pines, 1988; Arthur, 1990; Baumol and Benhabib, 1989; Mirowski, 1990; Radzicki, 1990). Our purpose here is to relate the new orientation in the natural sciences to a particular nonorthodox strand of thought within economics. All that is needed for this purpose is some appreciation of the general thrust of the enterprise, which involves a shift of perspective from the determinism of conventional physics (which presumably inspired the neoclassical research program in economics) to the nonteleological open-endedness, creative, and nondetermined nature of evolutionary processes.

[1]  J. Wiseman.  Principles of political economy , 1990 .

[2]  Philip Mirowski.  From Mandelbrot to Chaos in Economic Theory , 1990 .

[3]  Michael J. Radzicki,et al.  NSTITUTIONAL DYNAMICS, DETERMINISTIC CHAOS, AND SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEMS , 1990 .

[4]  W. Arthur.  Positive feedbacks in the economy , 1990 .

[5]  G. Dosi,et al.  Technical Change and Economic Theory , 1989 .

[6]  Richard N. Langlois,et al.  Economics as a Process: Essays in the New Institutional Economics , 1989 .

[7]  Jess Benhabib,et al.  Chaos: Significance, Mechanism, and Economic Applications , 1989 .

[8]  J. Wiseman.  Cost, Choice and Political Economy , 1989 .

[9]  J. S. Wicken.  Evolution, Thermodynamics, and Information: Extending the Darwinian Program , 1987 .

[10]  Gerald P. O'Driscoll,et al.  The economics of time and ignorance , 1987 .

[11]  G. Madison,et al.  The Logic of Liberty , 1986 .

[12]  I. Prigogine.  Science, civilization and democracy : values, systems, structures and affinities , 1986 .

[13]  E. Mayr.  The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance , 1983 .

[14]  M. Rizzo.  Time, uncertainty, and disequilibrium : exploration of Austrian themes , 1980 .

[15]  G. Shackle,et al.  Imagination and the Nature of Choice , 1979 .

[16]  B. Wilkins.  Civil Service Reform in Brazil. Principles versus Practice; Economic Policy-Making and Development in Brazil. 1947-1964 , 1969 .

[17]  K. Popper.  The Poverty of Historicism , 1959 .

[18]  M. Polanyi,et al.  The Logic of Liberty , 1951 .

[19]  J. M. Buchanan.  Economic Science in the Future , 1992 .

[20]  J. M. Buchanan.  Economics: Between Predictive Science and Moral Philosophy , 1988 .

[21]  W. Arthur,et al.  The Economy as an Evolving Complex System II , 1988 .

[22]  Ulrich Fehl.  Spontaneous Order and the Subjectivity of Expectations:A Contribution to the Lachmann-O’Driscoll Problem , 1986 .

[23]  Israel M. Kirzner.  Subjectivism, Intelligibility and Economic Understanding , 1986 .

[24]  Israel M. Kirzner.  Discovery and the Capitalist Process , 1985 .

[25]  U. Witt.  Coordination of Individual Economie Activities as an Evolving Process of Self-Organization , 1985, Economie appliquee.

[26]  I. Prigogine,et al.  Order out of chaos , 1984 .

[27]  William Guthrie,et al.  Beyond Positive Economics , 1983 .

[28]  G. Shackle.  The Bounds of Unknowledge , 1983 .

[29]  S. Littlechild.  Subjectivism and Method in Economics , 1983 .

[30]  K. Popper,et al.  The open universe : an argument for indeterminism , 1982 .

[31]  G. Shackle,et al.  Subjectivist economics : the new Austrian school , 1981 .

[32]  F. Hayek.  New studies in philosophy, politics, economics, and the history of ideas , 1978 .

[33]  L. Lachmann.  From Mises to Shackle: An Essay on Austrian Economics and the Kaleidic Society , 1976 .

[34]  J. M. Buchanan,et al.  Cost and choice : an inquiry in economic theory , 1969 .