Unbeknownst to her, Lin had stumbled upon a radically different configuration of ideas than the mathematical empire dominating economic theory. The mathematical empire was founded on the assumption that self-interest automatically leads to collective wellbeing. Lin’s work was founded upon a stubborn fact of life: self-interest often leads to the overexploitation of resources and other problems that make life worse for everyone, not better.
Collective wellbeing was achieved, at least roughly, and there was something emergent and self-organizing about the way it happened—but the process of negotiation bore no resemblance whatsoever to the assumptions of the mathematical empire, which even has trouble accommodating the concept of norms, as we have seen.
The Woman Who Saved Economics from Disaster
Who is Elinor Ostrom?
By David Sloan Wilson
Evonomics, 2016 February 1
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