Why did the global market reforms of the 1980s reflect an economic theory and practical policy consensus ?

In 1900 economics was the 'dismal science', post enlightenment ideas envisaged the economy as a gigantic clockwork machine, where aggregate behaviour could be predicted and controlled from an understanding of the parts. But real diverse human behaviour was an embarrassment and the dramatic self sustaining growth of technology unexplained.

Theory underpins all policy and by the 1980's a new understanding had emerged -

* Adam Smith and the neo classical theory of supply and demand provides a justification for market deregulation, and also market failure, but this concept is counterintuitive and based on unrealistic assumptions - an 'invisible hand' emerges to efficiently co-ordinate systems as diverse as health care, education, social welfare and environmental pollution ... 

* David Ricardo and comparative advantage emphasised the mutual benefits for everyone from specialisation and free trade but again the concept is counterintuitive - Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson – 'thousands of important and intelligent men have never been able to grasp it or believe it even after it was explained to them' ...

* Robert Solow and total factor productivity highlighted the overwhelming dependence of economic growth and wealth creation on the process of technological and institutional innovation but this concept is also counterintuitive - total factor productivity is a measure of our ignorance ...

* Paul Romer and endogenous growth theory lifted some of the gloom by focusing on increasing returns and Adam Smith's 'Pin Factory'. He integrated into mainstream economics the growth effects of specialisation and scale through education, training, R&D, incentives and co-ordinating institutions ... and also the effects of political collective decisions, protectionism, regulation and taxation ...  

A global policy initiative was driven by some North American academic institutions and the IEA in England focusing on improving consumer welfare and economic efficiency. Policies enabling a Darwinian process of diversity and choice in imperfect markets were preferred to the alternative of more direct political command. 

It is the counterintuitive ideas of evolutionary economics that explain how endogenous technological innovation in competing democratic institutions drives progress through consumer and investor choices in markets.

Consumer and investor choices involve individual decision making behaviour based on Herbert Simon's 'satisficing' -  

* building on proven inherited success, imitate success, there is no better place to start, don't reinvent the wheel 

* freely choosing between options available at the time and the place, unhindered by 'rent seeking' Bishops, Princes, Generals or majorities

* experimenting to generate diversity and increase the chances of discovering new tricks 

* co-operating with others to discover better tricks from synergies which are not available to individuals

* retaliating against the inevitable parasites and predators to defend and accumulate benefits

* learning from the successful outcomes of differential survival and starting again

Markets coordinate activities 'as if' a control loop -

* inherited price information from millions of trades in technological 'know how' (the sensors) lead to

*diversity as innovative alternatives are generated by competing entrepreneurs (the set points) for

*selection and testing by customers who sift value (the algorithms) resulting in 

* some investments (the actuators) differentially surviving and changing the population frequency of successful 'know how' 

A diversity of randomly generated ideas are tested against alternatives in competitive markets where the most valuable for the cost incurred differentially survive and grow. The process results in monopolistic competition and increasing returns from technological 'know how' and seeds further innovation and diversity. 

There does seem to be a 'logic' of moral and economic efficiency associated with satisficing behaviour and market co-ordination - 

* evolutionary processes - copy / vary / select

* enabling environments - freedom for diverse competitive generating and testing 

* co-operative synergies - discovery and accumulation of new survival tricks 

* protective immune systems - defence from parasites and predators

* survival 'know how' ... morality itself could be an evolving survival trick ... ?

Adam Smith got it right, he wrote 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' (1759) before he wrote 'The Wealth of Nations' (1776) !

Arthur Peacocke, Oxford University - 'The technical words are immanence and transcendence, the process of evolution seems to have a propensity towards goodness, but death and suffering are part of a package deal, if you are free you can't have goodness without evil, in this way death and suffering are related to creation and not to sin'.

Robert Lucas, University of Chicago - 'The consequences for human welfare involved in questions about human capital spillovers are simply staggering. Once one starts to think about them, it's hard to think of anything else'.

The Open University - 'The principles of comparative advantage and gains from trade are the most important results in the whole of economics. They apply at national, and also individual level. If each specialises in the activity in which they have comparative advantage and engage in trade they are both better off than if each tries to be self sufficient'.

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