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Re: Bionomics?
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Subject: Re: Bionomics?
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From: Max Jacobs <mjacobs@bionomics.org>
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Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 09:40:56 -0800
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Article: 16764 of alt.sustainable.agriculture
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Newsgroups: alt.agriculture.misc, alt.org.earth-first, alt.politics.economics, alt.politics.greens, alt.save.the.earth, alt.sustainable.agriculture, sci.agriculture, sci.econ, talk.environment, tor.general
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Organization: The Bionomics Institute
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References: <56fhn4$das@news1.io.org> <56fuha$77i@nbdchc4.bnr.ca> <E0x0zD.7I8.0.sheppard@torfree.net> <56i5rt$nu3@nbdchc4.bnr.ca> <56mruo$rhb@news1.io.org> <3290BD1E.1495@bionomics.org> <32950439.77AE@ilhawaii.net> <3295E71A.534D@bionomics.org> <JMC.96Nov24225107@Steam.stanford.edu>
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Reply-To: mjacobs@bionomics.org
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Xref: newz.oit.unc.edu alt.agriculture.misc:6634 alt.org.earth-first:7103 alt.politics.economics:94017 alt.politics.greens:24188 alt.save.the.earth:26747 alt.sustainable.agriculture:16764 sci.agriculture:16550 sci.econ:61254 talk.environment:79417
John McCarthy wrote:
>
> Are the bionomists interested in input-output tables that show the
> flow of goods among industries, or do they also lump all material
> goods together as neo-classical economists seem to do?
>
> --
> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
> During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
> a lot.
Actually neither.
Input output tables were heavily used by central planners in the
socialist economies of eastern europe. Also they are an example of a
mechanistic view of the economy, one we obviously do not hold. That
people can control the output of the economy as if it were a machine.
We also dont assume that there are two goods x and y and try to predict
peoples actions through somewhat complicated mathematical analyses like
neo-classical economists.
Though we dont really have an official stand on mathematics in economics
we try to avoid it. Math has made many view the economy as a machine.
As if it is just a set of equations that you can "fine tune" to get the
desired result. In our view the economy is much too complex for that.
Our job is to come up with examples where the biologic world and the
economic world meet so that perhaps the bionomic view of the economy
will be thoroughly explored by top economists. We are probably closest
to the Austrian school and the belief of people like Hayek in
spontaneous order.
If your question was trying to figure out which end of the spectrum we
are coming from, the answer is somewhat difficult. Though we are
generally free market we do believe that there is a role for government
to train the jobless and other stuff like that which would help the
economy grow. At our 4th annual Bionomic conference we had people from
much of the political spectrum (i say much because we didnt have any
authoritarians there, unless they just werent speaking up) with people
like Morley Winograd from the DLC and Ed Crane from CATO both having
their chance to speak.
By the way, Brad Cox of George Mason University teaches a virtual course
in Bionomics at http://www.virtualschool.edu if you really are
interested. There also is a book called Bionomics by Michael Rothschild
which would be in the economics section of a place like Borders or
Barnes and Noble. I am not meaning for this to sound like an
advertisement but i felt that if you browsed through the book you would
get where im coming from rather easily.
Max Jacobs
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The Bionomics Institute
http://www.bionomics.org
Viewing the economy as an ecosystem
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