Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics: Eric D. Beinhocker
- Filed under: Recommended
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Accounting for the creation of wealth has long challenged humanity’s best minds. For business readers and academics, Beinhocker is a zealous and able guide to the emerging economic paradigm shift he calls the “Complexity Economics revolution.” A fellow of the economic think tank McKinsey Global Institute, he rejects traditional economic theory, based on a physics model of closed systems, in which change is an external disruptive shock. Instead, he outlines an open, adaptive system with interlocking networks that change organically, reflecting the interaction of technological innovation, social development and business practice. Wealth is created to the degree that this interaction decreases entropy in favor of “fit order” that meets human needs, desires and preferences. Beinhocker is sufficiently comfortable with this evolutionary model to advocate a comprehensive redesigning of institutions and society to facilitate it. He argues for corporate policies that favor many small risks over a few big ones and recommends restructuring financial theory to favor growth and endurance rather than short-term gains. Though he asserts that complexity economics can reduce political partisanship and increase social capital, Beinhocker stops short of saying that it cures sexual dysfunction. By the end, the concept emerges as a great idea that the author tries to make a panacea. (June 1)
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Review
“…a brilliant piece of intellectual history that deserves a prominent place on any shelf of economic literature.” — The Washington Post, September 10, 2006
“…a truly dynamic theory of the economy. Schumpeter would have approved.” — Richard R. Nelson, George Blumenthal Professor of International and Public Affairs, Business and Law, Emeritus, Columbia University
“…required reading for anyone interested in the future direction of economic thinking and its implications for business and society.” — Michael J. Mauboussin, Chief Investment Strategist, Legg Mason Capital Management, and author of More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places
“In this ambitious tome, Beinhocker jettisons the math-based canon of economic history and recasts it as a teeming evolutionary stew” — Josh McHugh, WIRED Magazine
“In this work, he’s a story teller of the first rank.” — The Globe and Mail, November 8, 2006
“The Origin of Wealth is a frontal attack on neoclassical economic theory.” — Journal of Economic Literature, December 2006
“The freshest look at modern economics in decades.” — Gregor Bailar, CIO and Executive Vice President, Capital One
“Unquestionably the most important business book of the year.” — John Kay, Management Today
…ambitious…convention shattering. It’s premise is novel and sweeping: don’t grow your organization, evolve it. — Josh McHugh, WIRED Magazine
Absorbing…[a] tour de force. It’s time to wake up from what Beinhocker calls ‘the dream of a clockwork universe’. — James Pressley, Bloomberg
Eric Beinhocker’s The Origin of Wealth ties risk management, incentives, and human psychology together with many other criteria, all under one philosophical framework. –The Motley Fool, December 31, 2007
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