I'm reading a book called 'The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity and a Radical Remaking of Economics' by Eric D. Beinhocker and i've found it quite interesting considering i usually find economics a rather dry and parsimonious subject.

To cut a long story short he explains how traditional economic theory began, not unlike the social sciences, with a heavy borrowing from the natural sciences, in a questionable formulation of the phenomenon of economics. I suppose it was the desire t 'empiricize' social-economic phenomenon.o

He explains: [blockquote] Traditional economics is built on a shaky foundation of assumptions that has led to equally shaky conclusions. The next logical step is to ask why the field has ended up in this position. The explanation for the troubles with traditional economics goes back to over a hundred years ago, to teh crucial step Walras took when he imported the concept of equilbrium into economics from physics. Without realizing it, Walras fundamentally mislcassified the economy[/blockquote]

Then he goes onto discuss the idea of economic theoriest confusing scientific metaphors and by doing so misclassifying economic concepts. [blockquote]In other words, is the equilibrium framework in traditional economics a metaphor or science?[/blockquote]

The discussion continues into an explanation that the first law of thermodynamics was complete when Walras had borrowed the concepts from phsyics textbooks but the second and third laws were incomplete.

It gets interesting later when the author begins to discuss complex systems and computer models.

The model that is referred to - 'The Sugarscape' reminded me of James Lovelocks 'Daisy World' model, which although oversimplified helped me to appreciate the problems that might arise with highly complex systems and scenarios. In fact one of the brow-raising results was the model confirms that poverty, inqeuality, i.e., the distribution of wealth and resources is extremely complex and other factors (programs/agents with different faculties and different resources) can be introduced to further complicate the problem.

[blockquote]Epstein and Axtell note that sugarscape is too simple to draw specific conclusions about real-world poverty and inequality. But the model does make clear that one-dimensional views, whether on the left (e.g., poverty is caused by the rich's exploiting the poor) or on the right (e.g., if you are poor, you must be dumb, lazy, or both) are likely to be wrong, and any effective solutions must address the problem sytsematcially. Complexity economists have gone beyond the simple world of Sugarscape to better understand the causes of inequality in the real world.[/blockquote]

There still much to read and hopefully the book goes into the philosophical-ethical implications, but it certainly reveals there are limits to the idea of determinism; i.e., a great deal of luck, placement and other factors affect how the distribution of wealth develops and conslidates.

It was only yesterday i was discussing the Verstehen position with my sociology teacher and it made me chuckle inside when she explained that although she was/is a sociologist she agrees with the verstehen position. I suppose in that context, given the current economic climate it's a positive development that complexity economics is beginning to bear fruit and recognize the unrealistic nature of traditional economic theory.

Any thoughts?

I am trying to recognise what you are questioning; the problem of cultural relativism, hermeneutics etc &c. in sociology/anthropology is an interesting topic, together with models about the genesis of inequality, but perhaps you should be a bit more specific as to what you are trying to ask. It would be a shame to see no one write in a thread with such great potential.