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E-raamat: Classical Econophysics [Taylor & Francis e-raamat]

(University of Glasgow, UK), (University of Maryland, USA), (Heriot-Watt University, UK), (Wake Forest University, USA), (The Open University)
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This monograph examines the domain of classical political economy using the methodologies developed in recent years both by the new discipline of econo-physics and by computing science. This approach is used to re-examine the classical subdivisions of political economy: production, exchange, distribution and finance.

The book begins by examining the most basic feature of economic life production and asks what it is about physical laws that allows production to take place. How is it that human labour is able to modify the world? It looks at the role that information has played in the process of mass production and the extent to which human labour still remains a key resource. The Ricardian labour theory of value is re-examined in the light of econophysics, presenting agent based models in which the Ricardian theory of value appears as an emergent property. The authors present models giving rise to the class distribution of income, and the long term evolution of profit rates in market economies. Money is analysed using tools drawn both from computer science and the recent Chartalist school of financial theory.

Covering a combination of techniques drawn from three areas, classical political economy, theoretical computer science and econophysics, to produce models that deepen our understanding of economic reality, this new title will be of interest to higher level doctoral and research students, as well as scientists working in the field of econophysics.
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xv
List of Digressions xvii
Acknowledgements xix
Introduction 1
PART I Work, information and value 5
1 Problematizing labour
7
1.1 Watt on work
7
1.2 Marx: the architect and the bee
12
1.3 The demonic challenge
19
1.4 Entropy
20
2 Problematizing information
30
2.1 The Shannon—Weaver concept of information
30
2.2 Entropy reductions in action programs
38
2.3 Alternative views of information
38
3 Labour productivity
47
3.1 Raising production in general
47
3.2 Accelerated production
53
3.3 Parallelizing production
58
4 Babbage and the birth of digital technology
74
4.1 Copy and calculating
74
4.2 Tables
75
4.3 Prony, Babbage and the division of mental labour
77
4.4 Babbage's machines
81
5 From machines to the universal machine
85
5.1 Processing information
85
5.2 Turing machines
89
5.3 The universal Turing machine
97
5.4 Decidability and the Church–Turing thesis
99
5.5 The TM computability of markets
103
5.6 RUR or Robots R Us
108
6 Political economy: value and labour
113
6.1 Smith and Watt
113
6.2 Labour commanded as a measure of value
117
6.3 Labour time and the determination of value
119
6.4 Ricardo: clarity achieved
121
6.5 Marx's contribution
125
6.6 Two challenges to the labour theory of value
130
6.7 The probabilistic response
136
PART II Exchange, money and capital 137
7 The probabilistic approach to economic variables
139
7.1 Probabilistic models
139
8 The statistical mechanics of money
148
8.1 Introduction
148
8.2 Boltzmann–Gibbs distribution
149
8.3 Computer simulations
150
8.4 Thermal machine
152
8.5 Models with debt
153
8.6 Boltzmann equation
155
8.7 Non-Boltzmann–Gibbs distributions
156
8.8 Nonlinear Boltzmann equation vs. linear master equation
158
8.9 Conclusions
159
9 A probabilistic approach to the law of value
161
9.1 The law of value
161
9.2 The model
163
9.3 Simulation results
168
9.4 Analysis
174
9.5 Discussion
180
10 Value in the capitalist economy
184
10.1 Farjoun and Machover's approach to price
185
10.2 Information content of prices
188
10.3 Prices and the rate of profit
190
10.4 Empirical evidence for labour theory of value
192
11 Money, credit and the form of value
203
11.1 Money and the form of value
203
11.2 Two theories of money
206
11.3 Monetary relations and records
210
11.4 Money space, an illustration
214
11.5 Commodity–money space
220
11.6 The logical properties of financial transactions
226
12 Banking and capital
233
12.1 Bank credit
233
12.2 The necessity of paper money
244
12.3 Banking technology
247
12.4 The interest rate
254
12.5 Dominance of the financial sector
256
PART III Class distribution of income 261
13 A probabilistic model of the social relations of capitalism
263
13.1 Introduction
263
13.2 A dynamic model of the social relations of production
264
13.3 Results
271
13.4 A note on methodology
287
13.5 Essential and inessential properties of capitalism
290
14 Understanding profit
292
14.1 Sraffa: profit and the technology matrix
293
14.2 Kalecki: profit and monetary flows
298
14.3 Demographics and the long-run rate of profit
300
PART IV Information and coordination 319
15 Hayek, information and knowledge
321
15.1 Inadequacy of the price form
323
15.2 Information flows under market and plan
332
15.3 The argument from dynamics
337
PART V Appendices 341
Appendix A The law of value: proofs
343
Appendix B The law of value: experimental details
346
Appendix C A simple planning program
347
Appendix D Profits in the SA model
349
References 353
Index 361
W. Paul Cockshott has a PhD in Computer Science from Edinburgh University and is currently Reader in Computer Science at University of Glasgow. Allin F. Cottrell is Professor of Economics at Wake Forest University, North Carolina and has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. Gregory J. Michaelson is Professor of Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University, and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society. Ian P. Wright is a PhD student in Economics at the Open University. Victor M. Yakovenko is a Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland.