Expanding Socio-economics in Four Dimensions

Abstract

During the last decades the rapid progress in the fields of complex modelling and simulationor in the cognitive and the life sciences was not accompanied by a similar advancement of the socio-economic research tradition itself. Socio-economics as a hybrid field for the complex dynamics of modern societies across their micro-, meso- and macro-levels has still a long way to go in order to reach its full potential. The present article provides a general outline for expanding and advancing socio-economics along four different dimensions which should be able to produce a significant take-off for socio-economic theories, models, methods and mechanisms.

Keywords:

• socio-economics
• complexity sciences
• complex modelling
• second-order science

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The two concepts of socio-economics and social economics will be understood as strictly equivalent. For reasons of simplicity only the term socio-economics will be used throughout this article.

2 In an overview of the field of socio-economics Mark A. Lutz emphasizes that “‘social economics’, more than any other concept in the history of economics, has been subject to various meanings and interpretations for decades, even centuries. In addition, the North American meaning has tended to differ somewhat from the European sozialökonomie or economiesociale.” (Lutz, 2009, p. 516).

3 On publications which aim at a state of the art overview of the field of socio-economics, see for example, Benhabib, Bisin, and Jackson (2011a, 2011b), Davis and Dolfsma (2008a, 2008b), Hedtke (2014), Hollingsworth, Schmitter, and Streeck (1994), Hollingsworth and Boyer (1997), Hollingsworth, Müller, and Hollingsworth (2002), O’Boyle (1996) or Pettman (1977).

4 See, for example, Crouch (2004), Crouch and Streeck (1997, 2006), Hall and Soskice (2001), etc.

5 Degeneracy is a technical term and requires, formally speaking, that elements in a system can take over different tasks or functions. See, for example, Edelman (1987) or Edelman and Gally (2001).

6 Microfoundations should be seen as the set of specific socio-economic theories of action which can be used for explaining the behaviour of micro-units. In this sense, microfoundations do not imply principles like an ontological or a methodological individualism.

7 For a strong criticism on the necessity of micro-foundations in this respect, see, for example, King (2012).

8 The terms “components” or “building blocks” are used equivalently for transfers across scientific fields or disciplines. A component or building block can be a concept, a method, a model, a mechanism, a metaphor, elements from a theory or entire theories, etc. that are moved or transferred from one scientific field to another and then adapted to the new context. Usually, such a transfer of building blocks or components constitutes an innovation for the domain to which the transfer was undertaken. In this sense, the subsequent sections of this article point to fields or dimensions with a large number of potential components or building blocks for an innovative transfer to socio-economics.

9 The concept of a framework is used for the formal organization of research programmes, research traditions or of research designs. A socio-economic framework, thus, becomes the basic organization for the analysis of socio-economic themes and can be structured in different ways.

10 See also the comments of this paper by Boyer (2008), Mayntz (2008), Nowotny (2008) or Sornette (2008).

11 On the sciences of complexity see, among many others, Mainzer, 2007.

12 As to the general direction for an evolutionary socio-economic alternative to the mainstream economic paradigm, see, for example, Akerlof and Kranton (2010), Mandelbrot and Hudson (2008), Nelson and Winter (1982), Roubini and Mihm (2010), Sornette (2004) or Taleb (2012).

13 On current summaries of the neuro-cognitive architectures of these different faculties, see Gazzaniga, Bizzi, and Black (2004) or Calvert, Spence, and Stein (2004). Within the cognitive neuro-science arena, one finds meanwhile numerous sub-fields and disciplinary niches specializing on a particular senso-motoric, emotional or cognitive faculty. For a diverse set of literature over the last decades, see Calvin (1996), Calvin and Bickerton (2000), Damasio (1994, 2003, 2012), Deacon (1997), Edelman (1987, 2007), Hofstadter (1985, 2007), Hofstadter and Fluid Analogies Research Group (1995), Hofstadter and Sander (2013), Holland (1995, 2012), Kahnemann (2011), Nørretranders (1998), Ratey (2001), Roth (1999), Sporns (2012) or Sternberg and Wagner (1994).

14 Obviously, nanofoundations are not intended as a necessity to reduce micro-concepts to the nano-level. Rather, adding the neural level to socio-economics poses grand challenges for the folk-psychological notions which are currently used freely and independently from neural configurations by economists, social scientists and socio-economists alike.

15 On embedded or situated cognition, see, for example, Adams and Aizawa (2008), Gibbs (2005), Noe (2010) or Robbins and Aydede (2008).

16 See, for example, Ainslie (2001), Dennett (2004) or Wegner (2002).

17 On this point, see the classic text by Dennett (1991).

18 On relevant components or building blocks for the nano-level see, among many others, Adams and Aizawa (2008), Campbell (1984), Hofstadter and Dennett (1982), Lakoff and Nunez (2000), Lehrer (2012) orMinsky (1990).

19 For more details, see Müller (2013) and especially Müller and Riegler (2014).

20 On the broad scope of current approaches to socio-economic innovations, see, for example, the list of current European projects on social innovations (European Commission, 2014) or the range of triple, quadruple and quintuple innovation systems (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000; Werle, 2003 or Carayannis & Campbell, 2009, 2010, 2012).