Sublime

One is the neoclassical rational-choice-equilibrium argument that markets automatically come to the Pareto optimal equilibrium for society. This was Ken Arrow and Debreu’s great work. The second is more out of the Hayekian tradition, that markets are efficient at processing distributed information to help coordinate activity in the economy. But

“The Global Economy as an Adaptive Process,” at seven pages and zero equations, is well worth a read. Holland recounts many, now familiar, difficulties in mathematical analysis of economics that assume linearity, exclusively negative feedback loops, equilibria, and so on, before proposing that the economy is best thought of as what he calls an

no more need to have them enforce our contracts.

Public markets reward predictability.

so deeply uncomfortable saying, “I don’t know” or “it depends,” especially in finance.