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

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology

ISBN: 978-1-78560-960-2, eISBN: 978-1-78560-959-6

Publication date: 23 July 2016

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.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Jorge Soromenho, Bruce Caldwell, Scott Scheall, Jack Birner, Barkley Rosser, Peter Boettke, Pedro Garcia Duarte, José Chiappin, the participants of the HOPE workshop and the participants of the INET Young Scholar Online Seminar in the History of Economic Thought and Philosophy of Economics for helpful comments on earlier drafts. This work was enabled by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) through the grant#2015/00352-0. The author thanks the Estate of F. A. Hayek for granting me permission to quote from his unpublished materials.

Citation

Oliva, G. (2016), "The Road to Servomechanisms: The Influence of Cybernetics on Hayek from The Sensory Order to the Social Order", Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 34A), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 161-198. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542016000034A006

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited