Economic indeterminacy: a personal encounter with the economists' peculiar nemesis

1. Introduction : economic indeterminacy and the dance of the meta-axioms : the dynamic mechanism by which neoclassical economics turns defeat at the hands of indeterminacy into unassailable dominance -- 2. Unity is strength : it is also the cause of indeterminacy regarding the wage and employment preferences of employers and trades unions -- 3. Rational conflict : on the impossibility of a determinate theory of costly disagreement -- 4. No bluffing please, we are economists! Why bluffs and other subversive acts preclude determinate game theoretical analyses -- 5. Bargaining by rules of thumb : when strategic indeterminacy forces the rational negotiator to fall back on myopic rules of thumb -- 6. Marxists and the sirens' song : when disgruntled Marxists reach for neoclassical economics' toolbox they get more than they bargained for -- 7. A theory of solidarity : why indeterminacy is a prerequisite for genuine solidarity -- 8. On the power of what others think : how indeterminacy explodes when our preferences are influenced directly by other people's beliefs -- 9. The social foundations of corruption : on the indeterminate power of what others think -- 10. Evolving morals in the laboratory : the roots of distributional justice principles in indeterminacy -- 11. Evolving domination in the laboratory : the spontaneous creation of hierarchies and the patterned beliefs that support them -- 12. On the distinction between evolution and history : the impossibility of modelling behavioural mutations amongst political animals -- 13. Conclusion : dealing with indeterminacy on the stage of social life.

This volume is a collection of some of the best and most influential work of Yanis Varoufakis. The chapters all address the issue of economic indeterminacy, and the place of a socialized Homo Economicus within the economy. The book addresses Varoufakis' key interpretation regarding the way in which neoclassical economics deals with the twin problems of complexity and indeterminacy. He argues that all neoclassical modelling revolves around three meta-axioms: Methodological individualism, Methodological instrumentalism and the Methodological Imposition of Equilibrium. Eac