History of Thought as Ceremonial Genealogy: The Neglected Influence of Herbert Spencer on Thorstein Veblen

Large corporations are invariably structured as formal institutions, and this formality is reflected in organizational charts. These charts depict a multilevel managerial hierarchy of authority within the organization typified, in the simplest case, by a pyramid. Many economic and business researchers attribute formality to a desire for greater efficiency, although I do not take this position in the present paper. Instead, I agree with researchers who connect formality with organizational legitimacy. I further argue that personal interests are at work in bigness and formalization. Top managers are motivated by desire for power and prestige. Formality furthers these objectives by rigidly fixing relations and ranks within the organization. Widespread belief in efficiency and legitimacy converge with personal motives to encourage and entrench formality. Corporate size and structure are seen as having deleterious effects on employees and society at large. But they also have some negative impacts on those at the top.     

非线性系统的决定论与非决定论

非线性系统的决定论问题是科学领域内的一个十分复杂的问题。非线性科学表现出的许多特征使决定论面临巨大冲击,动摇着经典科学基于简单性信念的世界图景,引发持续不休的论争和困惑。基于当代力学学科所具有的普遍非线性特征,结合当代科技革命所带来的新的变化和新的要求,首先对非线性系统进行了区别于数学形式上的非线性定义,力求突破通常对决定论与非决定论的简单二分。在对决定论与非决定论概念重新界定和分析的基础上,给出了态的哲学定义,进而提出了态决定论的观点,指出：非线性是对严格决定论的彻底否定,但不是对非决定论的肯定,因此,并不必然导致科学的非决定论。态决定论的非线性、外部扰动、多因素耦合、结构和参数不确定性或时变性等多因素作用,使对非线性系统的研究呈现出新的科学图景,     

The Chinese Are Coming: The Political Implications of the Growing Sino-Israel Economic Ties

The relationship between the State of Israel and the People’s Republic of China offers a fascinating case in modern international relations.Ostensibly there is not much that unites the two countries so different in size and population,in regimes and politics,yet,over the past two decades,these relations have acquired a great deal of importance and significance for both.While it is easy to understand the attraction to China of Israel’s experience,innovation and its exemplary human capital,it is less evident what China is seeking to achieve in deepening its ties with Israel.This paper attempts to assess the state of Sino-Israel bilateral relations and their impact on the future of the two nations.     

21世纪——生物经济时代的到来

20世纪是由物理学和化学主宰的世纪 ,2 1世纪将是由生物学主宰的世纪。突飞猛进的生物技术将给人们带来巨大的经济效益 ,形成生物经济 ,而生物经济的前途不可限量 ,必将改变人类生活的各个方面。     

Regulating Slavery: Deck-Stacking and Credible Commitment in the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

In 1850, Congress delegated federal judicial powers to a newbureaucracy that was devoted to capturing escaped slaves infree states and returning them to their owners. The FugitiveSlave Act was an attempt to enhance the credibility of a commitmentmade in the Constitution's Article IV 2, which had gone unenforcedfor more than half a century. This article demonstrates howCongress engaged in deck-stacking, engineering the administrativestructure and judicial procedures of the fugitive slave renditionprocess in ways that favored slave-holding interests. Analysisof votes by members of Congress on final passage of the actand amendments to the act demonstrate the political influenceson choices of process. I demonstrate that regional (free versusslave state), partisan (Whig versus Democrat), and electoral(Free Soil party support) calculations all play a role in determiningthe likelihood of a legislator voting for the antislavery position.Moreover, political conflict was muted when amendments dealtmainly with structural issues, but was amplified when the amendment'scontent was procedural.     

Worker Cooperatives in the Theory of the Firm: Marx and Veblen on Technological Determinism

This article contends that, in their treatments of worker cooperatives, the predominant theories of the firm adhere to the logic of technological determinism, and can accordingly be evaluated using the ideas of Thorstein Veblen and Karl Marx. Invoking these patriarchs’ respective distinctions between instrumental and ceremonial institutions and between the technical and social relations of production, the article argues that, contrary to contemporary theories of the firm, worker cooperatives possess an inherent but often latent advantage in implementing bureaucratic organizational structures, enjoying their instrumental/technical benefits for technology and coordination without incurring their ceremonial/social drawbacks for behavior and cooperation.     

Technology,the Technology Complex and the Paradox of Technological Determinism

This paper examines the working definitions of the term 'technology' across a range of disciplines such as industrial relations, organizational behaviour, operations management and development economics. The precise 'subdefinition' of technology in use depends on the disciplinary problematic. We develop a conceptual device called the technology complex to reveal the pattern that is observable when a large number of subdefinitions are compared. The technology complex is a list of the distinctive 'elements' that comprise the disciplinary subdefinitions of technology and it orders this list of elements from the 'physical' to the 'cultural'. The technology complex captures the idea that a working definition of technology will be some selection from the elements of the complex. The technology complex also captures the idea that in its most general sense 'technology' is 'knowledge related to artefacts'. We apply the technology complex to the issue of determinism in technological and social change using the examples of aircraft design and robotics. We argue that there is not an 'either—or' issue between the social and the technological influences on change since the terms are not distinct: 'technology' always includes some aspect of the social. We show how what appears to be 'technological determinism' in the examples of aircraft design and robotics use can be understood through the technology complex.     

Technology, the Technology Complex and the Paradox of Technological Determinism

This paper examines the working definitions of the term 'technology' across a range of disciplines such as industrial relations, organizational behaviour, operations management and development economics. The precise 'subdefinition' of technology in use depends on the disciplinary problematic. We develop a conceptual device called the technology complex to reveal the pattern that is observable when a large number of subdefinitions are compared. The technology complex is a list of the distinctive 'elements' that comprise the disciplinary subdefinitions of technology and it orders this list of elements from the 'physical' to the 'cultural'. The technology complex captures the idea that a working definition of technology will be some selection from the elements of the complex. The technology complex also captures the idea that in its most general sense 'technology' is 'knowledge related to artefacts'. We apply the technology complex to the issue of determinism in technological and social change using the examples of aircraft design and robotics. We argue that there is not an 'either—or' issue between the social and the technological influences on change since the terms are not distinct: 'technology' always includes some aspect of the social. We show how what appears to be 'technological determinism' in the examples of aircraft design and robotics use can be understood through the technology complex.     

Biology, Diseases, and Economics: An Epidemiological History of Slavery in the American South

The economic history of antebellum southern slavery has been and is the subject of ongoing debates among scholars. The literature includes assessments about the efficiency of slavery as well as about the adequacy of slave living standards and diets. Yet this literature under appreciates the important biologic and historical role that parasitic diseases played in the history of slavery. Recognizing the role of parasitic diseases calls into question some prevailing interpretations of slavery. Lacking direct evidence on slave diets, scholars turned to anthropometric evidence as proxies for the living standards of slaves, leading to the prevailing view that adult slaves were given adequate sustenance, but slave infants and children were severely malnourished. We argue it was not slave diets, but the combination of the plantation system and diseases that caused abnormally small slave children. The diseases that concern us, primarily hookworm and malaria, affected slaves ('blacks') and free labor ('whites') differently. Many slaves were concentrated on large plantations with infants and younger children crowded into 'nurseries.' This system allowed the maintenance and spread of diseases that adversely affected younger slaves. Southern white children however were less likely to be raised in conditions so conductive to parasitic diseases. The disease ecology of the antebellum South has implications for the prevailing view that slavery was more efficient than free labor. Biologic evidence indicates that people of tropical West African ancestry are more resilient to the effects of hookworm and malaria than European descendents. Thus when whites did contract these diseases, they were more afflicted than blacks. When slaves entered the adult work force they were taken from disease breeding grounds (slave nurseries) and sent into relatively (for blacks) healthy fields, while whites that went into the fields found a disease environment that was typically worse than that of their childhood. If black adults were more productive than were white adults because of a greater resilience to parasitic diseases, then part of any measured difference in productivity between slave and free farms should be attributed to the disease resistance of African descendents, rather than to any inherent efficiencies of slavery.     

Habit,Decision-Making,and Rationality: Comparing Thorstein Veblen and Early Herbert Simon

The article aims to contribute to the convergence between institutional and neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary economics. It intends to help unify the behavioral foundations of these two strands of thought by returning to the original views of their main historical inspirations. It thus proposes a comparative analysis of the theory of human behavior developed by Thorstein Veblen and Herbert Simon, respectively. The article notably discusses how Simon’s early work links together the notions of habit, rationality, and the decision-making process, and explores the extent to which his views are consistent with, complementary to, or divergent from Veblen’s. The article highlights several commonalities between Simon and Veblen’s views on habits. However, Simon departs from Veblen in developing a dual model of human behavior which clearly differentiates habit-based from decision-based behaviors. The article argues that neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary economists should go beyond this binary model and build on the pragmatist-Veblenian approach, in which these two dimensions are intimately entangled. This process could allow the economists in question to take advantage of the most valuable insights of institutional economics regarding the interactions between individual choices and habits and institutions.     

人类社会生产力发展的超越与回归——从传统发展观到可持续发展观

本文通过分析传统发展观与可持续发展观的特征及其社会影响 ,认为自工业革命以来 ,以科技进步为标志的人类社会生产力的发展极大地丰富了人类的物质文化财富 ,推动了人类文明的进步。但在人类企图“征服自然”、“驾驭自然”的传统发展观的支配之下 ,人类社会生产力的发展 ,必然对人类赖以生存的自然资源和生态环境产生极大破坏 ,超越了人与自然和谐发展的客观规律 ,严重威协着人类社会的生存与发展。因而 ,以科技进步为标志的人类社会生产力的发展 ,应回归到人与自然和谐相处的可持续发展观 ,正确认识自然规律 ,合理利用自然资源 ,优化自然生态环境 ,协调人口、资源、环境与发展的关系 ,为人类社会的全面进步与发展再铸辉煌     

生物质发电产业的春天来了

生物质发电是利用生物质所具有的生物质能进行的发电,是可再生能源发电的一种,包括农林废弃物直接燃烧发电、农林废弃物气化发电、垃圾焚烧发电、垃圾填埋气发电、沼气发电。生物质发电起源于20世纪70年代,当时,世界性的石     

Coming and going: Experiments on endogenous group sizes for excludable public goods

When a public good is congestible, individuals wanting to provide the public good face challenges in forming groups of optimal size, selecting the members of the group, and encouraging members to contribute for the public good. We conduct a series of experiments in which subjects form groups using three different entry and exit rules. The experimental results are analyzed in terms of group size, the level of public good provision, social efficiency, congestion and group stability. We find that entry restriction improves the average earnings for some individuals compared to free entry/exit or restricted exit. For a given group size, individuals under the restricted entry rule contribute more for the provision of the collective good. Also, for a given average contribution level of group members, subjects under the restricted entry rule suffer less from the congestion problem and are better able to form groups of sizes closer to the optimal.     

Coming to the Nuisance: An Economic Analysis from an Incomplete Contracts Perspective

We construct a model in which an investment opportunity arisesfor a first mover before it knows the identity of a second moverand in which joint location results in a negative externality.Contracts are inherently incomplete since the first mover cannotbargain over its ex ante investment decision with the anonymoussecond mover. Given this departure from the setting of the Coasetheorem, the allocation of property rights over the externalityhas real effects on social welfare. We investigate the relativeefficiency of property rights regimes used in practice: injunctions,damages, the ruling in the Spur Industries case, etc. The firstbest can be obtained by allocating property rights (in particularthe right to sue for damages) to the second mover. Allocatingproperty rights to the first mover, as a "coming to the nuisance"rule entails, leads to overinvestment. In contrast to conventionalwisdom, this inefficiency persists even if a monopoly landownercontrols all the land on which the parties may locate.     

拿什么应对文化经济时代的到来

当爱好成为文化经济时代的市场动力,思想成为文化产业的资源,梦想成为文化产品的内容,预示着文化经济时代的到来。本文认为:文化经济的崛起,标志着人类经济社会新阶段的来临。日本、韩国的文化自觉和自省开辟了经济发展的新能源,使资源小国一跃成为文化大国。美国的文化“无为”国策,成就了山姆大叔文化巨无霸。五千年尘封的中华文化能否赶上文化经济的快车,取决于中华文化能否走下圣坛增强其市场能力。     

中国出版企业上市的制度分析

中国出版企业上市存在着制度性门槛,意识形态功能的存在使中国出版企业不可能完全市场化和完全向非国有资本开放。在事业单位与企业单位、经济效益与社会效益、国有资本与其他资本之间存在着制度抉择,是对出版企业上市进行制度分析的基点。在目前情况下,出版企业整体上市几乎不可能。将出版企业的经营性业务分离,并向资本市场开放是中国出版企业上市制度博弈后的最佳选择。