Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation
Too often in economics the understanding of how things work by and large—not axiomatically or categorically—and the idea that we generally cannot know the economic system well enough to intervene into it beneficially are done less than justice. Yet they were Adam Smith's central messages for public policy, and they authorized a presumption of liberty, thus exceptions to liberty should be treated as exceptional and bear the burden of proof.

In Knowledge and Coordination, Daniel Klein reexamines the elements of economic liberalism. He interprets Friedrich Hayek's notion of spontaneous order from the aestheticized perspective of an allegorical Smithian spectator. Klein addresses issues economists have had surrounding the notion of coordination by distinguishing the concatenate coordination of Hayek, Ronald Coase, and Michael Polanyi from the mutual coordination of Thomas Schelling and game theory. Clarifying the meaning of "cooperation," he resolves debates over whether entrepreneurial innovation enhances or upsets coordination. Entrepreneurship is interpreted in terms of discovery, or new knowledge. He points out that beyond information, knowledge entails interpretation and judgment. Rejecting homo economicus, Klein offers a distinctive formulation of knowledge economics, entailing asymmetric interpretation, judgment, entrepreneurship, error and correction. This richness of knowledge joins agent and analyst, and meaningful theory depends on tacit affinities between the two, even common contacts with an allegorical spectator. Knowledge and Coordination illuminates the recurring connections to underlying purposes and sensibilities, of analysts as well as agents.

Knowledge and Coordination is an imaginative and insightful take on how, by confessing the looseness of its judgments and the by-and-large status of its claims, laissez-faire liberalism makes its economic doctrines more robust and its presumption of liberty more viable.
1102700936
Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation
Too often in economics the understanding of how things work by and large—not axiomatically or categorically—and the idea that we generally cannot know the economic system well enough to intervene into it beneficially are done less than justice. Yet they were Adam Smith's central messages for public policy, and they authorized a presumption of liberty, thus exceptions to liberty should be treated as exceptional and bear the burden of proof.

In Knowledge and Coordination, Daniel Klein reexamines the elements of economic liberalism. He interprets Friedrich Hayek's notion of spontaneous order from the aestheticized perspective of an allegorical Smithian spectator. Klein addresses issues economists have had surrounding the notion of coordination by distinguishing the concatenate coordination of Hayek, Ronald Coase, and Michael Polanyi from the mutual coordination of Thomas Schelling and game theory. Clarifying the meaning of "cooperation," he resolves debates over whether entrepreneurial innovation enhances or upsets coordination. Entrepreneurship is interpreted in terms of discovery, or new knowledge. He points out that beyond information, knowledge entails interpretation and judgment. Rejecting homo economicus, Klein offers a distinctive formulation of knowledge economics, entailing asymmetric interpretation, judgment, entrepreneurship, error and correction. This richness of knowledge joins agent and analyst, and meaningful theory depends on tacit affinities between the two, even common contacts with an allegorical spectator. Knowledge and Coordination illuminates the recurring connections to underlying purposes and sensibilities, of analysts as well as agents.

Knowledge and Coordination is an imaginative and insightful take on how, by confessing the looseness of its judgments and the by-and-large status of its claims, laissez-faire liberalism makes its economic doctrines more robust and its presumption of liberty more viable.
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Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation

Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation

by Daniel B. Klein
Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation

Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation

by Daniel B. Klein

Hardcover(New Edition)

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Overview

Too often in economics the understanding of how things work by and large—not axiomatically or categorically—and the idea that we generally cannot know the economic system well enough to intervene into it beneficially are done less than justice. Yet they were Adam Smith's central messages for public policy, and they authorized a presumption of liberty, thus exceptions to liberty should be treated as exceptional and bear the burden of proof.

In Knowledge and Coordination, Daniel Klein reexamines the elements of economic liberalism. He interprets Friedrich Hayek's notion of spontaneous order from the aestheticized perspective of an allegorical Smithian spectator. Klein addresses issues economists have had surrounding the notion of coordination by distinguishing the concatenate coordination of Hayek, Ronald Coase, and Michael Polanyi from the mutual coordination of Thomas Schelling and game theory. Clarifying the meaning of "cooperation," he resolves debates over whether entrepreneurial innovation enhances or upsets coordination. Entrepreneurship is interpreted in terms of discovery, or new knowledge. He points out that beyond information, knowledge entails interpretation and judgment. Rejecting homo economicus, Klein offers a distinctive formulation of knowledge economics, entailing asymmetric interpretation, judgment, entrepreneurship, error and correction. This richness of knowledge joins agent and analyst, and meaningful theory depends on tacit affinities between the two, even common contacts with an allegorical spectator. Knowledge and Coordination illuminates the recurring connections to underlying purposes and sensibilities, of analysts as well as agents.

Knowledge and Coordination is an imaginative and insightful take on how, by confessing the looseness of its judgments and the by-and-large status of its claims, laissez-faire liberalism makes its economic doctrines more robust and its presumption of liberty more viable.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780199794126
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 01/27/2012
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 372
Product dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Daniel B. Klein is Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and Associate Fellow at the Ratio Institute in Stockholm. He is the creator and chief-editor of the scholarly journal Econ Journal Watch.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments/A Note about Citation Practice
Preface

Some Smith-Hayek Homiletics
1. Rinkonomics: A Window on Spontaneous Order
2. Discovery Factors of Economic Freedom

About This Book
3. From a Raft in the Currents of Liberal Economics

The Two Coordinations
4. Concatenate Coordination and Mutual Coordination
5. Joy and the Matrix of Concatenate and Mutual
6. Light Shed by the Two Coordinations

Asymmetric Interpretation
7. Discovery and the Deepself
8. Experiment on Entrepreneurial Discovery
9. Let's Be Pluralist on Entrepreneurship
10. Knowledge Flat-talk: A Conceit of Supposed Experts and a Seduction to All

Studies in Spontaneous Order
11. Urban Transit: Planning and the Two Coordinations
12. The Integrity of You and Your Trading Partners: The Demand for and Supply of Assurance
13. Outstripped by Unknowns: Intervention and the Pace of Technology

Rethinking Our Way
14. Unfolding the Allegory of Market Communication and Social Error and Correction
15. Conclusion: Liberalism These Past 250 Years

Appendix Chapters
16. Owning Up to and Properly Locating Our Looseness: A Critique of Israel Kirzner on Coordination and Discovery
17. Some Fragments
18. In Defense of Dwelling in Great Minds: A Few Quotations from Michael Polanyi's The Study of Man

Glossary
References
Index
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