[lbo-talk] the "rationality" postulate

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Mon Sep 20 08:58:39 PDT 2004


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All the planning in the world can't overcome the 'law' of unintended consequences in socio-epistemic systems nor the algorithmic complexity of the biophysical world. See Amariglio and Ruccio on that score. That's not to say we shouldn't attempt to create forecasting models based on the best logics etc. we have, it's just to recognize there are ontic limits to rendering ourselves and the world predictable........

Ian

^^^^^^^

CB: Agree of course. The best laid plans of mice and men , often go astray. Or as Engels and Lenin put it we only have relative truth, not absolute truth because the universe is infinite and we are finite beings.

And Marxism itself has changed its "object" , the world political economy, by Marxism coming into the world, like a physicist's measurements changing the object of her study.

Here though Ted was saying something about Marxists assuming that capitalists are omniscient and rational, and I was pointing out that the fact of Marxists' advocating _more_ planning of the economy than in capitalism implies the opposite: That Marxists emphasize the lack of rationality and omniscience of capitalists.



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