[From Bill Williams 24 January 2004 7:10 PM CST]
Kenney,
I think you are making a good point. The economy is not just the market. The point was made, and frequently, perhaps tiresomely, by Veblen. I provide a sample....
Veblen, T. "Profesor Clark's Economics"
"... a gang of Aleutian Islanders slushing about in the wrack and
surf with rakes and magical incantations for the capture of
shell-fish are held, in point of taxonomic reality to be engaging
on a feat of hedonistic equilibrium in rent, wages, and interest.
And that is all there is to it. Indeed, for economic theory of
this kind, that is all there is to any economic situation. p. 193.
But, the market is, in a contemporary society, is unquestionably of almost fundamental importance. So, the market is _the_ major topic of consideration for, as Veblen said, "economic theory of this kind."
There are enough features to the market, banks, investment banking, even government, and professinal services such as accounting services, to keep the Test Bed folks happily engaged for the near future.
In regard to you question, "Test bed of what?"
As an onlooker to the Test Bed project, I think we need to be patient. They aren't ready to test anything as yet. And, based upon my slight experience they don't know what is out there that is availible to be tested. So, asking the question you have, is likely to provoke a considerable irritation. Really it is the journey rather than the destination that obviously provides the motivation. It is a matter of their not knowing where they are going, but they are happily on their way.
The testing phase will come when they have assembled enough structure to make testing models people have of economic agents sufficiently realistic that the results will be in some measure persuasive. How extensive the Test Bed will have to be before dis-interested onlookers will regard it as "sufficiently realistic" to be used in discriminating between rival conceptions of economic agency would be perilous to predict. My guess would be that no one would ever place any confidence what-so-ever in some modest sized software, a toy model, to select between rival conceptions of economic agency. Then there is the issue of how many models of human agency are availible to be tested? Has any thought been given to this question of how many? Not that I could tell. When some time ago I asked who wanted a Test Bed, I didn't think I got an adaquate answer. Not, that I claimed that no one did. I wasn't asking a trick question, but I wondered what this thing was really going to be used for. It wasn't clear to me that there was a readily identifiable market.
The active Test Bed folks can correct me if I'm mistaken.
I'm watching the progress with facination. Facination because, the issue involved in economic theory can generate such emotion involvement that logic and rationality get all bent out of shape. Bill Powers obviously has some reference levels and high loop gains associated with economic questions, but I'll have to say I don't pretend to understand with any confidence what is going on. My approach to economic issues, is to study particular questions until I have reached a novel understanding of the phenomena. I usually start with a paradoxical or anomolous situation. This allows me to build small models that simulate the behavior of a particular econmic issue. Doing so allows me to proceed by writing small programs-- sometimes two or three pages of code, sometimes 20 or thirty pages. The Test Bed, if it develops according to the initial description can be expected to require quite a bit of code. Powers doesn't like to write documentation, maybe nobody does. This can be expected to be a source of difficulty. Still, even though I've never found the idea interesting, not sufficiently at any rate to work for Powers, in developing the project-- something interesting might come of it.
Economic theory quite obviously frequently contains and expresses powerful elements irrationality. I've thought that TCP and Bill Powers dislike of Keynes had its source in some cultural clash. Powers current expressions of anger directed at me, contain stuff that I wouldn't at all have predicted. To say that I am amused, would be taunting Powers, but his attacks don't touch me in ways to which I am vulnerable.
It really seems to me that Bill is involved in some battle with a phantom (Keynes is somehow connected) and I am somehow perceived as the substantiation of the phantom. So, if the Test Bed can be developed so that it works well enough to be used to illustrate the nature of economic relationships, it will be interesting to see how the phantom's and the Test Bed interact. In regard to the interaction between the mundane world and the world of magic I've pasted in, following my signature, selections from Bronislow.
Bill Williams
Malinowski Bronislow (the Slav anthropologist
( Encyclopedia Social Science )
p. 636.
In some pursuits magic is used under certain conditions
and is absent under others. In a maritime comunity
depending upon the products of the sea there is never
magic connected with the collecting of shellfish or with
fishing by poison, weirs and fish traps, so long as
these are completely reliable. On the other hand, any
dangerous, hazardous and uncerntain type of fishing is
surrounded by ritual.
p. 636.
Bronislaw Malinowski observations of the behavior of the
Trobriand Islanders in the South Pacific describes the inter-
relation of matter-of-fact technique and magic.
even with all their systematic knowledge,
methodologically applied, they are still at the
mercy of powerful and incalculable tides, sudden
gales during the moonsoon season and unknown reefs.
And here comes in their magic, performed over the
cannoe during its construction, carried out at the
beggining and in the course of expeditions and
resorted to in moments of real danger.
If the modern seamen, entrenched in science and
reason, provided with all sorts of safety
appliances, sailing on steel-built steamers, if
even he has a singular tendency to superstition--
which does not rob him of his knowledge or reason,
nor make him altogether prelogical--can we wonder
that his savage collegue, under much more precarious
conditions, holds fast to the safety and comfort of
magic?
An interesting and crucial test is provided by
fishing in the and its magic.
While in the villages on the inner lagoon fishing
is done in an easy and absolutely reliable manner
by the method of posioning, yeilding abundant results
without danger and uncertainty, there are the shores
of the open ocean sea dangerous modes of fishing and
also certain types in which the yeild greatly varies
according to whether shoals of fish appear beforehand
or not. It is most significant that in the lagoon fishing,
where man can rely completely upon his knowledge and skill,
magic does not exist, while on the open sea fishing, full of
danger and uncertainty, there is extensive magical ritual to
secure safety and results. p. 30.
Reflecting upon what he percieves as a contrast between
the Trobriand Islanders and sophisticated Europeans Malinowski
states,
Looking from far and above, from our high places of
safety in developed civilization, it is easy to see
all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But, without
its power and guidance early man could not have mastered
his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man
have advanced to higher stages of culture. p. 90.
It is easy perhaps from the perspective of "higher stages of
culture" to see the "crudity and irrelevance of magic" _in
a_technologically_less_developed_culture_. But, it is
evidently far less easy to percieve such influences within
our own culture where we have been subjected to educational
programs intended to systematically induce magical beliefs.
The explaination of Robinson's peculiar combination of
success and failure was the result of her attempt to proceed
logically in what is a primarily a non-logical domain.
Returning to the conclusions which Malinowski drew from his
observations in the South Pacific,
... any drawing of conclusions, or arguing by the
law of logical contradiction, is absolutely futile
in the realm of belief, belief savage or civilized.
Two beliefs, quite contradictory to each other on
logical grounds may coexist, while a perfectly
obvious inference from a very firm tenent may be
simplely ignored. p. 220
Magic, Science and Religion and other essays
Bronislaw Malinowski
1948
Free Press