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Chapter 18 - Another Fatal Conceit

The Lesson from Evolutionary Economics Is Bottom-Up Self-Organization, Not Top-Down Government Design

from Part III - Deferred Dreams: Reflections on Politics and Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2020

Michael Shermer
Affiliation:
Chapman University, California
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Summary

This review essay was original published in the Journal of Bioeconomics in March, 2012. It was initiated by Ulrich Witt, Professor of Economics and Director of the Evolutionary Economics Group at the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany. He asked me to write a review of The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good (Princeton University Press) by the economist Robert H. Frank, to which Frank would reply. It was an intense but constructive exchange on some of the most important political and economic issues of our time, most notably solving the “collective action” problem of getting selfish actors in a social system (i.e., each of us individually) to forego what is good for us in the short term for what is good for all of us in the long term.

Type
Chapter
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Giving the Devil his Due
Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
, pp. 198 - 218
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Another Fatal Conceit
  • Michael Shermer, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Giving the Devil his Due
  • Online publication: 28 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779395.019
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  • Another Fatal Conceit
  • Michael Shermer, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Giving the Devil his Due
  • Online publication: 28 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779395.019
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Another Fatal Conceit
  • Michael Shermer, Chapman University, California
  • Book: Giving the Devil his Due
  • Online publication: 28 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108779395.019
Available formats
×