The Road to Servomechanisms: The Influence of Cybernetics on Hayek fromThe Sensory Orderto the Social Order

Gabriel Oliva

A chapter in Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, 2016, vol. 34A, pp 161-198 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: This chapter explores the ways in which cybernetics influenced the works of F. A. Hayek from the late 1940s onward. It shows that the concept of negative feedback, borrowed from cybernetics, was central to Hayek’s attempt to explain the principle of the emergence of human purposive behavior. Next, the chapter discusses Hayek’s later uses of cybernetic ideas in his works on the spontaneous formation of social orders. Finally, Hayek’s view on the appropriate scope of the use of cybernetics is considered.

Keywords: Cybernetics; F. A. Hayek; Norbert Wiener; Garrett Hardin; Ludwig von Bertalanffy; B25; B31; C60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:rhetzz:s0743-41542016000034a006

DOI: 10.1108/S0743-41542016000034A006

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