From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu> Subject: M-I: game theory Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 15:02:13 -0500 () Well, more of my defense of Roemer in anticipation of Louis Proyect's assault upon him, not that I fully agree with Roemer at all, and some of what LNP has said, I agree with. Nevertheless, a few notes. 1) Although a lot of Roemer's presentations presume methodological individualism, they don't have to. Let the "individuals" be groups or classes. Then, let the "games" begin. The analysis works out. Are not the capitalists and the workers each trying to get as much for themselves as possible? 2) I see no reason not to view the conflicts in a non-cooperative game as being awfully similar to a "contradiction." Why isn't a contradiction? 3) It is certainly true that Roemer does not present a Hegelian dialectical view. But, non-cooperative game theory has a dynamic version in its "repeated game" form in which a sort of abstracted historical process can be played out. There are people out there running simulation models of this sort of thing. 4) Of course a very basic aspect of this is the question of the use of mathematics. Many argue that dialectical analysis is inherently unmathematical and thus would rule out game theory. Now, on the one hand, Marx himself did not hesitate to use mathematics. Indeed, Phil Mirowski has argued that he was the first true mathematical economist. On the other hand, it is possible to interpret dialectical analysis in a mathematical manner, the quantity becomes quality being equivalent to a phase transition in nonlinear dynamics. I have even written a paper on this, but will not name it or where it was presented or where it is currently under review or who was in the audience for fear of being dinged for self-aggrandizement and awful academic elitism, blah blah blah. But in that paper I recognize that if one insists that dialectics cannot be mathematical, then the whole analogy is out the window. But why can it not be mathematical? Too complicated for Third World peasants to understand? So is much of Marx. Barkley Rosser -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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