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    Butterfly Economics: A New General Theory of Social and Economic Behavior

     
    4/4/2000
    The beating of a butterfly's wings in Japan, says a popular idea from chaos theory, can, in principle, spark an avalanche on even the mightiest Alpine peak. It's that interconnected nature of things that interests Ormerod, head of the Economic Assessment Unit at The Economist, who expands here upon themes he presented, to some controversy, in his 1994 book The Death of Economics. Orthodox economics, says Ormerod, the kind that views the world as a machine with clear actions that beget clear reactions, needs to be re-examined.  He applies his view of society as a living creature to the workings of the marketplace and other aspects of human life.  "Conventional economics is mistaken," says Ormerod, "when it views the economy and society as a machine, whose behavior, no matter how complicated, is ultimately predictable and controllable."
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