History matters: on the mystifying appeal of Bowles and Gintis

Trust and antitrust

John H Finch and Robert McMaster

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2018, vol. 42, issue 2, 285-308

Abstract: Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis have made a broad and sustained contribution to many areas of contemporary economic thought and policy discussions, centring on human interactions in economic settings. Since the mid-1980s, their work, collectively and individually, has developed from a concern with contested exchanges to analyses of behavioural repertoires pursued through evolutionary game theory in which they claim that ‘history matters’. Despite their alignment with the mainstream, they retain an appeal to some heterodox economists. We argue that this appeal is misplaced. Their theoretical work and knowledge claims rest on methodological individualism and equilibrium reasoning, which fosters an obtuse reductionism. They present a confused methodology, which seems to be motivated by a desire to remain coherent to standard economics. We show how their acceptance of methodological individualism and ergodic modelling undermines their knowledge claims as well as their declaration that history matters in their analysis.

Keywords: Methodological individualism; History; Game theory; Contested exchange; Walras’s; fiction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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