Conflicting opinions

摘要

At the outset of this review, I need to clarify my perspective. I am not a sociologist and I am not acquainted with a fair amount of the sociological literature referred to by author. My qualifications for undertaking this review are twofold. First, I am an economist who has spent much of the last 14 years studying the issues that are discussed in this book. Second, I am not an orthodox neo-classical economist. Instead, I believe that very little can be learned about economic growth and change from the kinds of mathematical growth models that are the sole topic of most courses on growth taught by mainline economists. To understand the causes and consequences of economic growth in general and the transition to the modern knowledge-based economy in particular, past history and present economic, social and political forces all need to be taken into account and, where possible, formalised within the structure of non-equilibrium evolutionary models.