Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Forrester and a Foundation for Evolutionary Economics

摘要

In his seminal 1953 book, David Hamilton [1999 (1953)] argues that classical economics,1 which first came of ageduring the intellectual revolution of Isaac Newton, is based on the notion of Newtonian change while institutionaleconomics, which first came of age during the intellectual revolution of Charles Darwin, is based on the notionevolutionary change. Indeed, Hamilton makes the case that this difference in the way that economic change isconceptualized defines the fundamental difference between institutional and classical economics. Newtonianchange is seen by Hamilton as taking place within a given social and economic structure while Darwinian orevolutionary change is viewed by Hamilton as occurring when there is an alteration of a society's social andeconomic structure itself.The purposes of this paper are to:1. honor Hamilton's extraordinary contribution to the history of economic thought during the fiftiethanniversary year of its publication.2. extend Hamilton's basic idea to seven additional schools of economic thought that are based, to somedegree, on an evolutionary view of change.3. argue that system dynamics computer simulation modeling, a methodology created by Jay W. Forrester,2can be profitably used to add value to the eight schools of economic thought that adhere to anevolutionary view of economic change.