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An Essay in Synergetic Economics

In: Joan Robinson and Modern Economic Theory

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  • Richard M. Goodwin

Abstract

When Roy Harrod (1948) said that, since investment raised demand and higher demand led to more investment, (a) he completed the Keynesian system; (b) he demonstrated the instability of capitalism; and (c) he contradicted a basic tenet of traditional economic analysis. When a firm or an individual makes an investment, any influence on its or his demand is negligible. This apparent contradiction between micro and macro has to be resolved and its resolution should be illuminating. The physicist faces a somewhat similar problem to that of the economist: he has a very large number of variables, the individual behavior of which he cannot hope to predict. The German physicist Haken (1983) has proposed a suggestive approach called ‘synergetics’. One or a few parameters may act in such a way as to produce uniform changes in the behavior of very large numbers of independent entities; he calls this ‘self-organization’.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard M. Goodwin, 1989. "An Essay in Synergetic Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: George R. Feiwel (ed.), Joan Robinson and Modern Economic Theory, chapter 7, pages 278-281, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-08633-7_7
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-08633-7_7
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