Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science

Philip Mirowski, Carl E Koch Professor of Economics and Policy Studies and the History and Philosophy of Science Philip Mirowski

Cambridge University Press, 2002 - Business & Economics - 655 pages

This is the first cross-over book in the history of science written by an historian of economics, combining a number of disciplinary and stylistic orientations. In it Philip Mirowshki shows how what is conventionally thought to be "history of technology" can be integrated with the history of economic ideas. His analysis combines Cold War history with the history of the postwar economics profession in America and later elsewhere, revealing that the Pax Americana had much to do with the content of such abstruse and formal doctrines such as linear programming and game theory. He links the literature on "cyborg science" found in science studies to economics, an element missing in the literature to date. Mirowski further calls into question the idea that economics has been immune to postmodern currents found in the larger culture, arguing that neoclassical economics has surreptitiously participated in the desconstruction of the integral "Self." Finally, he argues for a different style of economics, an alliance of computational and institutional themes, and challenges the widespread impression that there is nothing else besides American neoclassical economic theory left standing after the demise of Marxism. Philip Mirowski is Carl Koch Professor of Economics and the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame. He teaches in both the economics and science studies communities and has written frequently for academic journals. He is also the author of More Heat than Light (Cambridge, 1992) and editor of Natural Images in Economics (Cambridge, 1994) and Science Bought and Sold (University of Chicago, 2001).

Contents

• CYBORG AGONISTES: 1
• ROOMS WITH A VIEW: 2
• WHERE THE CYBORGS ARE: 4
• THE NATURAL SCIENCES AND THE HISTORY OF ECONOMICS: 7
• ANATOMY OF A CYBORG: 11
• ATTACK OF THE CYBORGS: 18
• THE NEW AUTOMATON THEATRE: 23
• SOME CYBORG GENEALOGIES OR HOW THE DEMON GOT ITS BOTS: 26
• THE LITTLE ENGINES THAT COULDVE: 31
• ADVENTURES OF A REDHOT DEMON: 43
• CYBERNETICS: 54
• THE DEVIL THAT MADE US DO IT: 77
• THE ADVENT OF COMPLEXITY: 88
• JOHN VON NEUMANN AND THE CYBORG INCURSION INTO ECONOMICS: 94
• ECONOMICS AT ONE REMOVE: 99
• PURITY: 105
• IMPURITY: 116
• WORLDLINESS: 136
• THE MILITARY THE SCIENTISTS AND THE REVISED RULES OF THE GAME: 153
• THE CYBORG CHARACTER OF SCIENCE MOBILIZATION IN WORLD WAR II: 161
• BLIPKRIEG: 177
• THE BALLAD OF HOTELLING AND SCHULTZ: 190
• SRG RAND RAD LAB: 199
• DO CYBORGS DREAM OF EFFICIENT MARKETS?: 232
• GETTING IN LINE WITH THE PROGRAM: 241
• COWLES UNREPENTANT UNRECURSIVE AND UNRECUSANT: 271
• ON THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF A DEMOCRATIC COMPUTER: 302
• THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: 309
• GAME THEORY AT RAND: 319
• THE HIGH COST OF INFORMATION IN POSTWAR NEOCLASSICAL THEORY: 370
• RIGOR MORTIS IN THE FIRST CASUALTY OF WAR: 390
• DOES THE RATIONAL ACTOR COMPUTE?: 415
• CORE WARS: 437
• SIMULACRA VERSUS AUTOMATA: 452
• SHOWDOWN AT THE OR CORRAL: 479
• SEND IN THE CLONES: 503
• MACHINES WHO THINK VERSUS MACHINES THAT SELL: 517
• WHERE IS THE COMPUTER TAKING US?: 520
• FIVE ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE OF COMPUTATIONAL ECONOMICS: 523
• THE HAYEK HYPOTHESIS AND EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS: 545
• GODE AND SUNDER GO ROBOSHOPPING: 551
• CONTINGENCY IRONY AND COMPUTATION: 560
• DOUBLE AUCTION AND SEALED BID ENCODED ONTO AUTOMATA: 567
• SEALEDBID AUCTION WITH ACCUMULATION RULE: 572
• ENVOI: 575
• REFERENCES: 577
• INDEX: 645

Bibliographic information

• Title: Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science
• Authors: Philip Mirowski, Carl E Koch Professor of Economics and Policy Studies and the History and Philosophy of Science Philip Mirowski
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2002
• ISBN: 0521775264, 9780521775267
• Length: 655 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economic History; Business & Economics / Economics / General; Science / History; Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects