Bridging Scottish Enlightenment with Complexity Theory: Wagner's "Rethinking Economics as Social Theory"

November 2022 marked the release of Richard Wagner’s "Rethinking Economics as Social Theory." This publication followed just two months after "Rethinking Public Choice." Both books belong to the "Rethinking Economics" series by Edward Elgar Publishing. Despite retiring in 2021, Wagner's intellectual contributions continue unabated, underscoring his dedication to the discipline.

Wagner starts by highlighting that economic theory originated as a social theory during the Scottish Enlightenment. Thinkers such as Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and David Hume endeavored to comprehend the intrinsic orderliness of societies, which appeared to arise without centralized guidance. Their pursuit of understanding the emergence of spontaneous orders laid the groundwork for economics as the cornerstone of the scientific exploration of society.

However, the marginal revolution in the 1870s redirected the trajectory of economics. By the early 20th century, the discipline had morphed into exercises in differential calculus, exemplified by Paul Samuelson's seminal 1947 work. The rise of neoclassical economics recast the field as a science centered on resource administration. Wagner posits that while optimization techniques are valuable, they cannot encapsulate all social phenomena. Sole reliance on these techniques might induce societal entropy, a concept Wagner delves into in "Rethinking Economics as Social Theory." He asserts that good governance cannot be distilled to mere optimization exercises.

Wagner's work is more than a critique; it's an invitation to bridge the contributions of the Scottish Enlightenment with modern analytical tools like complexity theory, network theory, and computational modeling. Wagner contends that such an amalgamation can yield a more profound, multifaceted understanding of economics as a branch of social science.

In "Rethinking Economics as Social Theory," Wagner masterfully interweaves historical perspectives with innovative concepts. For anyone interested in shaping the future of economics as social theory, Wagner's latest work is an essential read.