CTHEORY (Mallavarapu): In your work you challenge anthropomorphic and anthropocentric versions of history. What implications does this have for politics in an increasingly militarized world? More specifically, is there a danger of the idea of self-organizing systems being used to justify and celebrate increasing militarization and the growth of so-called "free market" economies?
De Landa: I'll begin with the latter. Theories of self-organization are in fact being used to explain what Adam Smith left unexplained: how the invisible hand is supposed to work. From a mere assumption of optimality at equilibrium we now have a better description of what markets do: they take advantage of decentralized dynamics to make use of local information (the information possessed by buyers and sellers). These markets are not optimizing since self-organizing dynamics may go through cycles of boom and bust. Only under the assumption of optimality and equilibrium can we say "the State should not interfere with the Market." The other assumption (of contingent self-organization) has plenty of room for governments to intervene. And more importantly, the local information version (due to Hayek and Simon) does not apply to large corporations, where strategic thinking (as modeled by game theory) is the key. So, far from justifying liberal assumptions the new view problematizes markets. (Let's also remember that enemies of markets, such as Marx, bought the equilibrium assumption completely: in his book Capital he can figure out the "socially necessary labor time," and hence calculate the rate of exploitation, only if profits are at equilibrium). Now, the new view of markets stresses their decentralization (hence corporations do not belong there), and this can hardly justify globalization which is mostly a result of corporations. And similarly for warfare, the danger begins when the people who do not go to war (the central planners) get to make the decisions. The soldiers who do the actual killing and dying are never as careless as that.
CTHEORY (Mallavarapu): In your work you challenge anthropomorphic and anthropocentric versions of history. What implications does this have for politics in an increasingly militarized world? More specifically, is there a danger of the idea of self-organizing systems being used to justify and celebrate increasing militarization and the growth of so-called "free market" economies?
ReplyDeleteDe Landa: I'll begin with the latter. Theories of self-organization are in fact being used to explain what Adam Smith left unexplained: how the invisible hand is supposed to work. From a mere assumption of optimality at equilibrium we now have a better description of what markets do: they take advantage of decentralized dynamics to make use of local information (the information possessed by buyers and sellers). These markets are not optimizing since self-organizing dynamics may go through cycles of boom and bust. Only under the assumption of optimality and equilibrium can we say "the State should not interfere with the Market." The other assumption (of contingent self-organization) has plenty of room for governments to intervene. And more importantly, the local information version (due to Hayek and Simon) does not apply to large corporations, where strategic thinking (as modeled by game theory) is the key. So, far from justifying liberal assumptions the new view problematizes markets. (Let's also remember that enemies of markets, such as Marx, bought the equilibrium assumption completely: in his book Capital he can figure out the "socially necessary labor time," and hence calculate the rate of exploitation, only if profits are at equilibrium). Now, the new view of markets stresses their decentralization (hence corporations do not belong there), and this can hardly justify globalization which is mostly a result of corporations. And similarly for warfare, the danger begins when the people who do not go to war (the central planners) get to make the decisions. The soldiers who do the actual killing and dying are never as careless as that.