Manfred Füllsack - Observing productivity: what it might mean to be productive when viewed through the lens of Complexity Theory

jpe:10637 - Journal of Philosophical Economics, November 20, 2012, Volume VI Issue 1 - https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.10637
Observing productivity: what it might mean to be productive when viewed through the lens of Complexity Theory

Authors: Manfred Füllsack

    The paper tries to explore options and preconditions for a theoretically thoroughly grounded conception of productivity that is able to account for its observer-dependency and thereby meets the needs of a dynamic and highly differentiated modern society. It does so in respect to insights from Cybernetics and Complexity theory, thereby taking up charges about the contradiction of economic productivity and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In respect to epistemological consequences of contemporary levels of productivity, a seemingly paradoxical constraint is put forward: the constraint that productivity is conditioned on being observed as such, with the observer in its turn being conditioned on productivity. The assumption is that this paradoxical constitution helps to keep productivity adaptive to the changes it itself incites in economy.


    Volume: Volume VI Issue 1
    Section: Articles
    Published on: November 20, 2012
    Imported on: December 28, 2022
    Keywords: productivity,complexity,observer-dependence,cybernetics,economic theory,computation,anticipatory systems,[SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences

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