Economics is not natural science - The Orange Mane

alkemical · 09-08-2009, 07:35 AM

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/rush...f09_index.html

ECONOMICS IS NOT NATURAL SCIENCE [8.11.09]
By Douglas Rushkoff

An Edge Original Essay

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF is a media analyst; documentary filmmaker, and author. His latest book is Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back.

The marketplace in which most commerce takes place today is not a pre-existing condition of the universe. It's not nature. It's a game, with very particular rules, set in motion by real people with real purposes. That's why it's so amazing to me that scientists, and people calling themselves scientists, would propose to study the market as if it were some natural system — like the weather, or a coral reef.

It's not. It's a product not of nature but of engineering. And to treat the market as nature, as some product of purely evolutionary forces, is to deny ourselves access to its ongoing redesign. It's as if we woke up in a world where just one operating system was running on all our computers and, worse, we didn't realize that any other operating system ever did or could ever exist. We would simply accept Windows as a given circumstance, and look for ways to adjust our society to its needs rather than the other way around.

{cont'd on site}

Rohirrim · 09-08-2009, 07:37 AM

I've been saying that for thirty years.

Garcia Bronco · 09-08-2009, 07:44 AM

Any system, regardless of it's nature, is subject to equilibrium and entropy. Those forces are indeed natural. It's only fair when it's not manipulated.

09-08-2009, 07:35 AM	#1
alkemical Guerrilla Ontologist rorrim\|mirror Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Future Posts: 42,696 Adopt-a-Bronco: Prima Materia	Economics is not natural science http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/rush...f09_index.html ECONOMICS IS NOT NATURAL SCIENCE [8.11.09] By Douglas Rushkoff An Edge Original Essay DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF is a media analyst; documentary filmmaker, and author. His latest book is Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back. The marketplace in which most commerce takes place today is not a pre-existing condition of the universe. It's not nature. It's a game, with very particular rules, set in motion by real people with real purposes. That's why it's so amazing to me that scientists, and people calling themselves scientists, would propose to study the market as if it were some natural system — like the weather, or a coral reef. It's not. It's a product not of nature but of engineering. And to treat the market as nature, as some product of purely evolutionary forces, is to deny ourselves access to its ongoing redesign. It's as if we woke up in a world where just one operating system was running on all our computers and, worse, we didn't realize that any other operating system ever did or could ever exist. We would simply accept Windows as a given circumstance, and look for ways to adjust our society to its needs rather than the other way around. {cont'd on site}

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09-08-2009, 07:37 AM	#2
Rohirrim Partisan Human Cannonball Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Twixt Hell & Highwater Posts: 48,843	I've been saying that for thirty years.

09-08-2009, 07:44 AM	#3
Garcia Bronco Hokie since 1993 Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 45,991 Adopt-a-Bronco: Tom Jackson	Any system, regardless of it's nature, is subject to equilibrium and entropy. Those forces are indeed natural. It's only fair when it's not manipulated.