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Holism vs Reductionism in Economic Thought}}
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\pn
Andy Denis\pn
City University, London
\b\m
\cl{\tbf Holism versus reductionism in economic thought}
\cl{\tbf A response to Mario Bunge}
\b\bsn                                                                                   
ABSTRACT.This paper is a response to Mario Bunge (2000) ‘Systemism: the
alternative to individualism and holism’. By compressing the two overlaying
oppositions, between holism and reductionism and between idealism and
materialism, into a single spectrum running from ‘individualism’ via
‘systemism’ to ‘holism’, Bunge loses focus and clarity on the fundamental
division between holistic and reductionistic world-views in economics and
social science in general. This lack of clarity itself contributes to an
over-simplification and misunderstanding of the relation between
methodological premises and policy consequences. Alongside the reductionist
free marketeers of the kind Bunge criticises, such as Friedman, Lucas and
Sir Keith Joseph, there are also holist <i>laissez-faire</i> theorists such
as Smith and Hayek. Ignoring the methodological differences between them is
both mistaken and allows us to overlook the fundamentally ideological role
of invisible hand mechanisms in allowing economists to retain some
approximation to efficiency as their default notion of how the economy
actually works.
\msn
{\bf Keywords:} Holism; reductionism; systems thinking; idealism;
materialism; economics; policy prescription; invisible hand.
\b
{\bbf 1. Introduction}
\msn
This paper is a response to Mario Bunge (2000) ‘Systemism: the alternative
to individualism and holism’. Bunge's paper is an extremely interesting
article which makes a number of telling points and is evidence of a growing
discomfort with the reductionism of the neoclassical school currently
hegemonic within the there are two major points which need to made with
respect to the article.Firstly, it is, in my opinion, preferable explicitly
to distinguish between the two oppositions to which Bunge is implicitly
referring: reductionism versus holism, on the one hand, and materialism
versus idealism on the other. The second point is that the relation between
policy prescription and philosophical standpoint in political economy is
both more complex and more fascinating than Bunge’s account would lead one
to believe.

Section 2 of the paper considers the first of these points and proceeds to
make some initial comments on the opposition between reductionism and holism
in economics. Section 3 looks in more detail at the second question, that of
the relationship between methodological standpoint and policy prescription
in political economy. Section 4 concludes.
\b
{\bbf 2. Holism versus reductionism and materialism versus idealism}
\msn
This section of the paper distinguishes the two oppositions with which, I
suggest, Bunge’s article is really concerned, and goes on to discuss the
significance of one of these, that between reductionism and holism, in
political economy.

Bunge's thesis is that there are three fundamental research approaches in
the social sciences: the two most influential, individualism and holism,
being fatally flawed, with only the minority approach of systemism offering
a viable way forward. The first two are inadequate – each managing to avoid
the other’s error only by committing an opposite error of its own, while
systemism manages to synthesise the other two, accepting the criticism each
makes of the other. For Bunge, ‘holism’ is inadequate ‘because there are no
relations without relata’; and ‘individualism’ so ‘because all individuals
are interrelated’(147)

Neither of the two most influential approaches to the study and management
of social affairs is completely adequate. Individualism is deficient
because it underrates or even overlooks the bonds among people, and holism,
because it plays down or even enslaves individual action. By contrast,
systemism makes room for both agency and structure.” (156-157)

Systemism, apart from being defined negatively with respect to individualism
and holism, is characterised by viewing the world from a systems
perspective: ‘everything is either a system or a component of a system and
every system has peculiar (emergent) properties that its components lack’
(147).

Now, there is nothing in these formulations which is incorrect and the
points made are valuable ones.  However, I think greater clarity can be
obtained by stating the matter slightly differently. We are fully justified
in endorsing Bunge’s rejection of ‘holism’ as ignoring the fact that the
relations, of which our systems of relations consist, depend fundamentally
upon the properties of the <i>relata</i>, the substrate-level entities which
are doing the relating.  But in doing so we take a position on a fundamental
opposition: that between materialism and idealism. When we observe, and
investigate, some facet of the world, we can choose – assuming we are at
least monists, of one kind or another – to be led by one of two kinds of
expectation: that the phenomenon in question is fundamentally reducible to
matter in motion, or, on the contrary, that the properties of the entity in
question derive ultimately from the mind, whether the mind of the individual
observer, or that of some more general consciousness such as a deity. In
rejecting what he calls ‘holism’, Bunge is taking his stand with
materialism, and opposing idealism.  What Bunge describes as ‘holism’ makes
the properties of an entity independent of the properties of its material
substrate.

We are equally justified in complaining, with Bunge, that ‘individualism’
fails to take into consideration the <i>relationships</i> between agents,
the fact that individuals are only nodes in <i>systems</i> of such
relationships, and the <i>emergence</i> properties at the macro, or system
level.  But when we do so, we are again taking a position on a particular
opposition which has implicitly or explicitly underlain a vast amount of
methodological discourse in economics and elsewhere: that between holism and
reductionism. We can see things in the world, and, in particular, economic
phenomena, as congeries of substrate-level entities – or we can attempt to
understand them as a whole or system, with emergent properties not enjoyed
by constituent components.

So, on the materialism-idealism polarity, we may see that Bunge’s systemism
adopts a materialist standpoint, while on the clash between holism and
reductionism, he supports holism A better – clumsier, perhaps, but more
exact title for Bunge’s article would therefore have been ‘The systems
standpoint or materialist holism: the alternative to reductionism and
idealism’.

Of these two oppositions, I am most immediately concerned with that between
holism and reductionism. Materialism has underpinned the natural scientific
revolutions of the past half-millennium, and thereby gained enormous
prestige (thank goodness).  That, on the one hand, it has done so in spite
of a considerable admixture of reductionism, and, on the other, holism has
so often been associated with idealism (the contributions of Hegel, Toynbee
and Smuts being prime examples – see, for example, Hegel, 1975, Toynbee,
1972, and Smuts, 1996), have both contributed to the peculiarly low esteem,
indeed, contempt, in which holism is held today. The list of systems
thinkers – scientists, philosophers, and evolutionary theorists working
within a materialistic holism – who have felt it necessary to condemn
‘holism’ is lengthy indeed.   Dawkins (1989:
113), Minsky (1985: 27), and Dennett (1995: 80-82) are just a few of the
most salient examples – and, of course, Bunge himself. So, while idealism is
largely (though certainly not entirely) discredited, reductionism is in far
better health. I want, therefore, to say more on this second opposition, and
will start with two proposed definitions:

Reductionism -- the view that an entity at one level can be understood as a
congeries, an aggregate of entities at a lower, substrate level, that the
properties and behaviour of higher level entities can be understood in terms
of the properties and behaviour of its constituent lower level parts,
<i>taken in isolation</i>. 

Holism -- the view that phenomena at one level can be understood as emergent
at that level, that a higher level entity can be understood as a product of
the <i>interrelationships</i> between its component parts.

Correspondence relating to previous versions of the paper suggest that some
discussion is in order at this point. Firstly, the question has been raised
(Bunge, personal communication) as to whether ‘reductionism’ and holism’ so
defined are ontological or epistemological standpoints As stated, both
definitions are epistemological – ‘an entity … can be understood as …”.
Nevertheless, if we adopt a realist standpoint, as in fact I do, then the
implication is that a phenomenon can be understood in a particular way
precisely because that is the way it is.   So as well as being explicitly
epistemological, the definitions are implicitly ontological. However, that
further step is unnecessary for the purposes of this paper.  

Secondly, the exact definitions of the terms are as controversial as
everything else in the debate between the supporters of each point of view.
The above definitions are my own, and are as unlikely to please as any
others Correspondents, responding to earlier versions of this paper, have
criticised this or that statement about reductionism or holism in the paper
but because their criticism was on the basis of other definitions than those
set out above, they failed to engage with the points that I am making submit
that what is critical here is that holism and reductionism so defined can be
shown to characterise two living trends in economic thought and to throw up
interesting and enlightening questions about the nature of those trends.  

Keynes, for example, in the Preface’ to the French edition of 1939 of the
<i>General Theory</i>, clearly advocates a holistic approach: I have called
my theory a <i style='mso-bidi-font-style: normal'>general </i>theory.   I
mean by this that I am chiefly concerned with the behaviour of the economic
system as a whole .... And I argue that important mistakes have been made
through extending to the system as a whole conclusions which have been
correctly arrived at in respect of a part of it taken in isolation.”
(Keynes, 1973: xxxii)

Keynes sets out very clearly here what he takes to be the distinguishing
feature of the two approaches: that, on the one hand, we can derive
<b>correct</b> conclusions from the study of <i>micro</i>economic phenomena
‘taken in isolation’, but that to extend those conclusions to <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style: normal'>macro</i>economic phenomena leads to
error, and, on the other, that the correct approach is (what we would now
call) a systems approach, aiming to examine the behaviour of ‘the economic
system as a whole’. The fallacy of
composition involved in the approach he is criticising here, derives from a
difference, between the two levels, in what it is legitimate to take as
parametric or given (Keynes, 1973: 293).</p>

Robert Lucas, on the contrary, is a very clear spokesman for the trend in
economics which favours a reductionist methodology.   The following is taken
from the final paragraph of his <i>Models of Business Cycles</i> (Lucas,
1987: 107): The most interesting recent developments in macroeconomic theory
seem to me describable as the reincorporation of aggregative problems such
as inflation and the business cycle within the general framework of
‘microeconomic’ theory.   If these developments succeed, the term
‘macro-economic’ will simply disappear from use and the modifier ‘micro’
will become superfluous. We will simply speak, as did Smith, Ricardo,
Marshall and Walras, of economic </i>theory. If we are honest, we will have
to face the fact that at any given time there will be phenomena that are
well-understood from the point of view of the economic theory we have, and
other phenomena that are not.   We will be tempted, I am sure, to relieve
the discomfort induced by discrepancies between theory and facts by saying
that the ill-understood facts are the province of some other, different kind
of economic theory.   Keynesian ‘macroeconomics’ was, I think, a surrender
(under great duress) to this temptation.   It led to the abandonment … of
the use of the only ‘engine for the discovery of truth’ that we have in
economics.

Here we have a clear expression of the desire to reduce macroeconomics to
microeconomics, and a characterisation of the Keynesian approach as an
illegitimate ‘surrender to temptation’. 

 Both the passages cited occur in contexts – a preface, and the concluding
paragraph of a book – where the authors are standing back from the detail of
the theories that they are presenting, and indicating what they regard as
the underlying general features of their approaches.   What they choose to
highlight in both cases is their selection of a holist or reductionist
approach.   This, I think, establishes, at least a prima facie </i>case,
that the issue is worth looking at and potentially useful in understanding
the controversy between various schools of thought in the history of
economics.  

Some examples can be given to show how this controversy continually emerges
in economics: in an extended review of Binmore (1994), comments thus on the
latter's deployment of evolutionary game theory – and it should be born in
mind that what he says is intended to be, not praise, but a very serious
criticism of Binmore’s approach: with [Binmore’s] new definition of
self-interest, methodological individualism, a hallmark of neoclassical
economics, is abandoned.   In its place is a more holistic and integrated
view of society as an integral organism”.

Demonstrating the dependence of all macroeconomics on microeconomic
principles is essential for the fulfillment of the (methodological)
individualist requirements of neoclassical economics” (cited in Nelson,
1984: 576) So Dore and Boland agree that the reductionist standpoint –
‘methodological individualism’ – is an essential component of neoclassical
economics.   In a similar vein, Schotter (1985: 2), right at the beginning
of a book on <i>Free Market Economics</i>, says that in the libertarian, or
classical liberal view, ‘society is nothing more than the aggregate of the
individuals composing it’.   That is, before anything else, Schotter feels
it important to establish the reductionist standpoint of libertarianism.

Hoover (1995), on the other hand, in a special edition of <i>The Monist</i>
on The Metaphysics of Economics, argues that The idea that macroeconomics
stands in need of a microfoundational base is a commonplace among economists
… [but] ontological reduction of macroeconomics to microeconomics is
untenable … while the program of microfoundations may illuminate
macroeconomics in various ways, it cannot succeed in its goal of replacing
macroeconomics.”

Feeling it necessary to point out that an example she wants to use for
purposes of illustration, although couched in reductionist terms, could be
replaced by a more holistic version, Nancy Cartwright remarks that We could
attempt to explain macroeconomic regularities by reference to capacities and
relations that can only sensibly be attributed to institutions or to the
economy as a whole, with no promise of reduction to features of
individuals.”   (1995: 278)

Nelson (1984) is an interesting
case since at first he seems enthusiastic about the possibility of reducing
macro to micro in economics:
The possibility of reducing at least parts of
macroeconomic theory to microeconomic theory is especially exciting …. [I]t
seems that the large–scale phenomena dealt with in macroeconomics must be the
results of the total effects of the small scale phenomena dealt with in
microeconomics.    Therefore, one might
expect that bridges could be built by merely adding up the microeconomic laws
describing the microphenomena to obtain the macroeconomic laws describing
macrophenomena …. [I]t does seem that a reduction of macroeconomics to
microeconomics would not be plagued with the kind of ontological difficulties
which might attend [other reduction] schemes” (Nelson, 1984: 573-74).

His conclusion, however, is pessimistic.   There is little prospect of
providing anything which deserves to be called microfoundations … it is
unlikely that we will see any progress in reducing macroeconomics to
microeconomics.” (ibid: 593)


The way forward … is to eschew the reductionist search for finer-grain
microfoundations and instead [to] study how complex economic systems can
emerge from the interactions between agents” (Cross and Strachan, 1997:
565). Finally, Hayek, who spent much of his life criticising the linked
errors of macroeconomics, economic statistics and socialism, was   amongst
the most trenchant of those wishing to deny the legitimacy of
macroeconomics: ‘I recognize … microeconomic theory as the only legitimate
economic theory (1983: 22); ‘I believe it is only microeconomics which
enables us to understand the crucial functions of the market process’
(Hayek, 1983: 27); ‘[M]y disagreement with that book [sc Keynes's <i>General
Theory</i>] did not refer so much to any detail of the analysis as the
general approach followed in the whole work.   The real issue was the
validity of ... macro-analysis’.  (Hayek, 1978: 100).   As we shall see,
however, the citation of these passages by no means settles the question of
Hayek's stance on the methodological issue of reductionism versus holism.   

This section has argued that Bunge’s triad individualism-systemism-holism
rests on a pair of more fundamental dyads – reductionism-holism and
idealism-materialism.  Further, I have
proposed definitions of reduction and holism and tried to show that the
opposition between them is a living issue in economics.   The next section
takes up the issue of the association, which can be seen to emerge here, and
which is asserted by Bunge, between methodological premises and policy
prescription. 
\b
{\bbf 3.Policy prescription and social philosophy}
\msn
A pattern seems to emerge from the examples cited: apparently there is a
tendency for libertarians and those on the right of the spectrum of policy
views within economics, such as Lucas, to appeal to reductionist
methodological premises, while those on the left, those like Keynes adopting
a more interventionist stance, are more likely to invoke holistic
underpinnings for their theoretical pronouncements. Bunge takes up this
point, speaking of the obsolete individualism of … Smith … [and] the
neoclassical economists’ (147); the cultural policy of liberalism, which is
based on individualism, is one of benign neglect.   By contrast, the
totalitarian cultural policy, which is based on holism, is one of
censorship’ (150-151); ‘all market worshippers espouse individualism’
(151).‘The radical individualists oppose all social planning in the name of
individual liberties … holists swear by top-down planning … they are likely
to ignore their aspirations and rights [sc those of the common people].   In
either case, the powerless individual, whether forsaken or corralled, has
nothing to gain’ (153).   By contrast, ‘systemism takes into account social
values (ignored by individualism) as well as individual values (ignored by
holism)’ (157).  

But there is a paradox here.   We have just seen that there <i>seems </i>to
be an association between a <i>laissez-faire</i> policy prescription and a
reductionist methodology.   Nevertheless, starting with Adam Smith a
profoundly influential trend, epitomised by writers such as Friedrich Hayek
and Armen Alchian, has proposed what has been called an ‘invisible hand
theorem (De Vany, 1996: 427), in which order in human affairs is ‘emergent’,
‘resulting from human action but not design’.   This emergence seems flatly
to contradict the association between laissez-faire and reductionism just
noted.   This section will explore that paradox.  

Perhaps the canonical statement of the ‘invisible hand theorem’ is Smith’s
statement that It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or
the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own
interest.   We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their
self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their
advantages.”  

Even here, in this well-known and apparently simple statement, there is
something mysterious about the relation between micro and macro levels.  
The butcher, brewer and baker do not care about the dinners they provide, so
that, in some sense, the desirable social outcome of feeding the members of
society is achieved in spite of rather than because of the motives and
behaviours of the food providers.   The articulation between the motivation
and behaviour of agents at the micro level and macro outcomes is not even at
first blush a trivial or straightforward question. It seems highly
paradoxical that the trend which is associated with this ‘invisible hand
theorem’, a trend which I describe as ‘reductionist’, should refer to the
‘emergent’ properties of human order, when emergence is precisely what
distinguishes the holist from the reductionist approach.

The question therefore arises, whether the invisible hand theorem is
consistent with the reductionist or the holist approach.   Haworth (1994 Ch
4, Section 1 ‘A logical dilemma’, 32-35) performs an invaluable service by
addressing precisely this issue.   Haworth’s procedure – part of his
philosophical critique of libertarian thinking – is as follows.   Firstly,
he identifies two ‘theses’, implicit in libertarian thought, which he
defines as follows, each illustrated by a statement from a libertarian
source.   Then the libertarians’ logical dilemma arises from the mutual
incompatibility of the two theses:


<b>The reducibility thesis</b>: the fully developed market economy can be
understood as the sum or aggregate of its discrete components, the individual
bilateral exchanges at the micro level.  
 Sir Keith Joseph: ‘Since inequality arises from the operation of
innumerable preferences, it cannot be evil unless those preferences are
themselves evil.

<b>The invisible hand thesis</b>: the market is a ‘paradigmatic exemplar’ of
want-satisfaction (ie, unrestricted market forces leave agents better off
than any alternative economic environment) because an invisible hand
transmutes our self-interested behaviour into socially desirable outcomes.
Mandeville: ‘the grand principle that makes us social creatures, the solid
basis, the life and support of all trade and employment without exception is

So reductionism says that evil only comes of evil, while the job of the
invisible hand is specifically to transmute evil into good. For Sir Keith
the aggregate outcome cannot be evil as long as the preferences it is based
on are innocent; for Mandeville, on the contrary, the aggregate outcome
cannot be good unless the preferences underpinning it are evil, vicious,
selfish.   Thus Haworth is able to conclude that the libertarians cannot
have it both ways: ‘libertarianism is seriously broken backed in the sense
that it must abandon one of its central theses.’ (Haworth, 1994: 34)

My own approach is slightly different from Haworth’s.   Firstly, we need to
pay more attention to the association, alluded to earlier, between
methodological standpoint and policy prescription. There are policy
implications of the choice between reductionism and holism.   And, indeed,
the consequences for policy implied by the approach selected, so far from
being a mere scholium, are the tail which wags the methodological dog.

If one adopts the systems approach and recognises that the unintended
collective outcomes of an unplanned, uncoordinated mass of individual
actions may have far from desirable features, then the obvious implication
is to see whether there is anything we can do about it.   The absence of an
invisible hand invites the intervention of the very visible hand of state
intervention. The reductionist approach, on the contrary, says that,
assuming individuals can be counted on to do the best they can for
themselves given the constraints they face, the aggregate outcome of those
individual actions will also be the best available: state intervention in
the economy is nugatory.

There are two possibilities: we could be living in a world where the
reductionists are right or one where the holists are right.   Needless to
say, I think we reside in the latter.   If we lived in the former, the macro
level would simply reflect the micro level.  There would be nothing for an
invisible hand to do.   The individual would be directly social, or, what
comes to the same thing, there would be no separate category of the social.
  Individual utility maximisation would directly be social welfare
maximisation: the distinction between them would be meaningless.   Likewise,
macro irrationality would be just a summary of micro irrationality:
unemployment would either be a product of irrational behaviour by workers,
such as ‘pricing themselves out of jobs’, or it would be the product of a
rational desire for leisure and, hence, itself rational. In general,
individuals could with confidence be left to get on with it without
supervision or intervention.   A reductionist world would be a laissez-faire
world.

If, on the other hand, we were to inhabit, as in my opinion we do, a
holistic world then reductionists would (and do) have a problem. It is
fairly obvious that higher level entities are not simply aggregates of their
micro components: water does not behave as an aggregate of hydrogen and
oxygen; steam, liquid water, and ice do not consist of tiny gaseous, liquid
and solid molecules; nor do chairs consist of hard, green, ugly or
uncomfortable molecules (Haworth, 1994: 35). As Ken Binmore (1994: 213)
says, ‘As we all know, you would be very lucky if a small change in your
program led only to a small change on your screen.   Tiny programming errors
typically lead to wild and unpredictable results when the program is
run.’All these properties emerge at higher levels.   The problem faced by
the reductionist is how to reconcile this fact of an obvious disjuncture
between levels with the laissez-faire policy prescription.   Libertarians
face severe difficulties sustaining a logically consistent reductionism in a
holistic world.  

The invisible hand is one potential solution to this problem.   There are
two possibilities.   Either one can ignore the disjuncture between levels,
and adopt a thoroughgoing reductionist methodology and policy stance – this
seems to be line taken by Joseph, Lucas and Friedman – or with Hayek and
Adam Smith one can accept that disjuncture and adopt a methodological holism
but at the same time postulate a mechanism reconciling that methodological
holism with a <i>laissez-faire</i> policy reductionism.   Such a mechanism
is an invisible hand mechanism. The invisible hand allows us to say, granted
that social outcomes are not logically bound to reflect individual behaviour
in an aggregative, summary manner, nevertheless a mechanism exists which
ensures that in practice </i>they do so.   The invisible hand is what allows
us to think, and act, in a reductionist way in a holistic world: it
underpins reductionism by tacitly conceding holism. Laissez-faire</i> is
vindicated, we are inveigled into tying the visible hand behind our back, if
we can be persuaded that the invisible hand will do its job instead, and do
it better.

What I am suggesting, therefore, is the following: the <i>laissez-faire</i>
policy prescription does, indeed, embody a reductionist standpoint.  
However, there is more than one way of sustaining that standpoint
methodologically.   One can believe, or at least act as if one believes,
that the world truly is reductionist in relevant ways and that supposed
macro-level pathology is simply the summation of micro-level behaviour which
may or may not be pathological. <i>Laissez-faire</i> is a reductionist
policy prescription in the sense that it issues from a reductionist
methodological standpoint.   Or one can accept that the world is holistic
and hence that macro-level pathologies might in principle be emergent at
that level, but postulate the existence of an invisible hand mechanism which
ensures that the reductionist policy prescription of <i>laissez-faire</i> is
nevertheless valid. The latter strategy combines methodological holism with
policy reductionism.

Bunge's criticisms of the ‘individualism’ (for which, following the
terminology I adopt, read <i>reductionism</i>) of the neoclassical
economists are well taken - although it may well be a rhetorical error
blandly to dismiss monetarist macroeconomics as akin to faith healing (156)!
  But the simple, one-to-one relationship between this reductionist
standpoint and a <i>laissez-faire</i> policy prescription, which Bunge
asserts, simply doesn’t exist. Compare the standpoints of Hayek and
Friedman.   For Friedman, economics is based on the study of ‘a number of
independent households -- a collection of Robinson Crusoes’ (cited in
Haworth, 1994: 8).
For Hayek, on the contrary, ‘individuals are
merely the foci in the network of
relationships’ (Hayek, 1979: 59).
So on the definitions proposed earlier, Hayek subscribes to a very clearly
holistic, and Friedman to an equally clearly reductionist methodology. Yet
they still both endorse the same basic framework for policy prescription:
<i>laissez-faire</i>.  
And in bracketing Smith with the neoclassicals (148) in the reductionist
camp, Bunge is simply in error – see Denis (1999, 2000).

Smith and Hayek are methodologically very distant from the crude
reductionism of Joseph, Lucas and Friedman. They tacitly recognise a
holistic world by invoking invisible hand mechanisms.   For Smith the
invisible hand is literally the hand of an omniscient and omnipotent deity
desiring nothing other than the maximisation of human welfare. For Hayek,
writing in a more secular age, the invisible hand mechanism takes the form
of an evolutionary process, albeit, unfortunately, one based on the exploded
group selection theory of VC Wynne-Edwards. And Hayek’s attempts to
distinguish his own stance from that of Keynes, his anxiety to head off a
line of thought leading from the holistic or systems thinking premises he
shared with Keynes to an interventionist policy prescription, lead him to
make the crudely reductionistic statements about macroeconomics and
microeconomics which we noted earlier.

The resolution, then, to the paradox identified at the beginning of this
section is as follows. We can understand the contradictory association
between an appeal to reductionist methodological underpinnings and an
assertion of a holistic invisible hand mechanism on the basis of a dual
foundation.   The first part is a factual hypothesis about the nature of the
world we actually inhabit, namely, the systems view of the world, the
hypothesis that the world is a holistic one with all that this implies about
the scope and potential for collective intervention in the economy.   The
second part concerns the laissez-faire policy prescription of the
reductionist camp, a policy prescription which both depends on and supports
the reductionist methodological stance. Taking the two points together, we
can see that some mechanism has to be introduced to articulate between a
holist world and a reductionist policy prescription: the invisible hand does
the job. The invisible hand, whatever its precise content, whether it
comprises the hand of a deity as in Smith, or the result of an evolutionary
process as in Hayek, allows us to assert that, in practice, the world can be
treated as if it were reductionist. The logical inconsistency which Howarth
has correctly identified is an internalisation of the inconsistency between
programme and holistic world.   It is illogical because it is attempting to
do what is ultimately impossible, namely to reconcile the irreconcilable.  

The alternative to both of these approaches is to combine recognition of the
holistic nature of the world we live in with acceptance that there is no
invisible hand. In this view, rational individual self-seeking behaviour is
by no means the necessary and sufficient micro substrate for the
desirability of social outcomes.  Rather, behaviour must be social if
desirable social outcomes are to be obtained.  According to Keynes, for
example, egotistical activity uncoordinated by the state may lead to
inefficient outcomes.   The price system aggregates rational individual
actions but the aggregate is an unintended outcome as far as those
individuals are concerned.  There is no particular reason why unintended
outcomes should necessarily be desirable and often they are not.  
Individuals take responsibility for maximising their own welfare, given what
everyone else is doing, but society as a whole has to take responsibility
for organising the aggregate outcome if undesirable aggregate outcomes are
to be avoided: There is no design but our own ... the invisible hand is
merely our own bleeding feet moving through pain and loss to an uncertain
destination.”(Keynes, 1930, reprinted 1981: 471).

The verdict of this section, therefore, is that while reductionist
approaches may be safely dismissed, embracing holism is no guarantee of
getting it right. There is holism and there is holism. Methodological holism
combined with the <i>deus ex machina </i>of an invisible hand mechanism can
still sustain the inappropriate and unwarranted reductionist policy
prescription of <i>laissez-faire</i>. The bulk of this paper has concerned
the holism-reductionism dyad, at the cost of ignoring the
idealism-materialism dyad. Nevertheless, as was argued earlier, holism can
be paired with either materialism or idealism, and what Bunge, and I,
advocate is, in my terminology, a materialist holism. The implication is
that writers in the invisible hand tradition, such as Smith and Hayek, adopt
an idealist from of holism. As far as Smith is concerned, the case has been
made in Denis (1999) where the invisible hand is interpreted as literally
the hand of an omniscient, omnipotent and benign deity. As far as Hayek is
concerned, this is the topic of another paper, at the time of writing under
consideration for publication by another journal.  

The consequence of this analysis is that the association between
methodological standpoint and policy prescription asserted in Bunge (2000)
can be challenged.   There is no simple association between
‘individualism’and laissez-faire, on the one hand, nor between ‘holism’ and
intervention or centralisation, on the other.   On the contrary, <i>both
</i>‘individualism’ (reductionism) <i>and</i> ‘holism’ (idealist holism) are
associated with laissez-faire while ‘systemism’ (materialist holism) is
associated with a range of policy prescriptions from mild to radical
intervention.
\b
{\bbf 4. Conclusion} 
\msn
In substance Bunge’s article is a significant contribution to our
understanding of the methodology of economics – perhaps best embodied in his
bold injunction to ‘see agency through Weber’s microscope, and structure
through Marx’s telescope’ (154).   The article, however, can be faulted in
two respects.   By compressing the two overlaying oppositions, between
holism and reductionism and between idealism and materialism, into a single
spectrum running from ‘individualism’ via ‘systemism’ to ‘holism’, he loses
focus and clarity on the fundamental division between holistic and
reductionistic world-views in economics and social science in general.  
This lack of clarity itself contributes to an over-simplification and
misunderstanding of the relation between methodological premises and policy
consequences. There do exist reductionist free marketeers of the kind Bunge
describes: the pronouncements of Friedman, Lucas and Sir Keith fit this
pattern.   But to lump holists such as Smith and Hayek in with them, is both
mistaken and allows us to ignore the fundamentally ideological role of
invisible hand mechanisms in allowing economists to retain some
approximation to efficiency as their default notion of how the capitalist
economy actually works.

\end

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Ken Binmore (1994)
<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Playing Fair. Game Theory and the Social
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 style='mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>Vol I,  London: MIT
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<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Mario Bunge (2000)
‘Systemism: the alternative to individualism and holism’ <i>The Journal of
Socio-Economics</i> 29: 147-157</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Nancy Cartwright
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<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Rod Cross and D
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<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><span
style='mso-font-kerning:9.0pt'>Richard Dawkins (1989) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
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Richard Dawkins (1982) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Extended Phenotype:
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<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Andy Denis (1999)
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of the Human Sciences</i> 12, 3, August, 71-86</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Andy Denis (2000)
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in the history of political economy’ <i>Studies in the History and Philosophy
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<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Daniel C Dennett
(1995) <i>Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meanings of Life</i>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>A De Vany (1996) ‘Information,
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<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>M Dore (1997),‘On Playing Fair:
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<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>Richard L Gregory (ed) (1987) <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Oxford Companion to the Mind</i> Oxford:
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<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>Alan Haworth (1994) <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Anti-libertarianism. Markets, philosophy and
myth</i> London: Routledge</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>Friedrich A Hayek (1966) ‘Dr
Bernard Mandeville’ <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Proceedings of the
British Academy</i> 52, 125-141  
 (British Academy ‘Lecture on a Master Mind’ read 23 March 1966; London:
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<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>Friedrich A <span style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
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<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>Friedrich A Hayek (1979/1952) <i>the
Counter-Revolution of Science. Studies on the Abuse of Reason</i> Indianapolis:
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<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>Friedrich A Hayek (1983) <i
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Adam Smith<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-element:field-begin'> 
XE &quot;Smith, Adam&quot; <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'> <![endif]--><span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">  Institute</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel (1975/1830) <i>Logic</i> (Part One of the <i>Encyclopaedia of
the Philosophical Sciences</i>) (trans William Wallace, forward by FN Findlay)
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<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Ted Honderich (ed)
(1995) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Oxford Companion to Philosophy</i>
Oxford: Oxford University Press</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>KD Hoover (1995) ‘Is Macroeconomics
for Real?’ <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Monist</i> 78, 3, July,
235-257</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>John Maynard
Keynes (1973/1936) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The General Theory of
Employment, Interest and Money</i>, <u>The Collected Writings of John Maynard
Keynes</u> eds: Richard Kahn, Roy Harrod, Austin Robinson et al, Vol VII
(London: Macmillan/Royal Economic Society)</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>Keynes, J.M. (1981), <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Activities 1929-31. Rethinking Employment
and Unemployment Policies</i>, <u>The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes</u>
eds: Richard Kahn, Roy Harrod, Austin Robinson et al, Vol XX (London:
Macmillan/Royal Economic Society).</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:200%'>Robert E Lucas, Jr (1987) <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Models of Business Cycles</i> Oxford:
Blackwell</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Marvin Minsky
(1986) <i>The Society of Mind</i> London: Heinemann</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>A Nelson (1984)
‘Some issues surrounding the reduction of macroeconomics to microeconomics’ <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Philosophy of Science</i> 51, 573-594</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>A Schotter (1985) <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Free Market Economics. A Critical Appraisal</i>
New York: St Martin’s Press</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Adam Smith<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'>  XE &quot;Smith, Adam&quot; <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'> <![endif]--><span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">  (1976-1980) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Glasgow
Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith</i> Oxford: Clarendon
Press/OUP, reprinted, 1981-82, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">   Volume I (1976/1776), <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>The Theory of Moral Sentiments</i>, ed DD Raphael and AL Macfie.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">   Volume II (1976/1759), <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations </i>(in
two volumes), ed RH Campbell, AS Skinner and WB Todd</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Jan Christiaan
Smuts (1996/1926) <i>Holism and Evolution</i> Highland, NY: Gestalt Journal
Press</p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'><![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoHeader style='line-height:200%;tab-stops:36.0pt'>Arnold Toynbee
(1972) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>A Study of History </i>(new
edition revised and abridged from the 12-volume edition (Toynbee, 1920-61) by
Arnold Toynbee and Jane Caplan) Oxford University Press/Thames and Hudson</p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote-list'><![if !supportFootnotes]><br clear=all>

<hr align=left size=1 width="33%">

<![endif]>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn1>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn1' href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>†  </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Much of the material
reproduced here, other than references to Bunge (2000), derives from a paper,
‘Collective and individual rationality: an introduction to the issues’, given
in the PhD Seminar of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought
conference, Graz, Austria, 2000.    Thanks
are due to seminar participants, to discussants Stephan Böhm and Richard Sturn,
and to Ian Steedman for comments on that paper.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">   I should like to thank Mario Bunge, Joan Safran and Joe Sen for
support and constructive comment on a previous version of the present
paper.    The usual caveat applies.<o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn2>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn2' href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:
footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[1]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Unqualified page numbers
refer to Bunge (2000).<o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn3>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn3' href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:
footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[2]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Apart, perhaps, from a
certain tendency to hyperbole: that ‘everything’ is a system, or part of one,
is both debatable and an unnecessary claim for the point being made.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">   <o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn4>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn4' href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:
footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[3]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Clearly, on his own
terminology, he does nothing of the sort: on their own understanding of the
word, Bunge, along with Dawkins, Dennett, Minsky and many others, reject ‘holism’,
while on <i>my</i> understanding of the term, on the understanding of ‘holism’
as defined below, they all embrace it.    <o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn5>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn5' href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:
footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[4]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> An excellent discussion
with some initial references can be found in the entry “‘Emergence’ and
‘reduction’ in explanations” in Gregory (1987: 217-218).<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">   See also the entries on ‘reductionism’ and
‘holism’ in Honderich (1995: 750-52, 371-72).<o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn6>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn6' href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:
footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[5]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> It would, of course, be
open to critics to object to my fallible attempts to produce a logically
coherent opposition in sympathy with the literature I had consulted.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">   <o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn7>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn7' href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:
footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[6]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Mario Bunge (personal
communication) correctly points out that the invisible hand is not a theorem
but a postulate: citing works in which it is referred to as a theorem is not to
be taken as endorsement of that usage. <o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn8>

<p class=FootNoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:ftn8'
href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span
style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[7]<![endif]>   </a><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> That is, Smith <!--[if supportFields]><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'>  XE &quot;Smith, Adam&quot;  <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'>  <![endif]--><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">  (1976/1776: Book I, chapter ii, paragraph 2). <o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn9>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn9' href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class=MsoFootnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:
footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[8]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Or at least
libertarian-approved: Mandeville has been claimed by Hayek as a libertarian
thinker (Hayek, 1966).<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><o:p></o:p></i> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn10>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn10' href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[9]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Keith Joseph and Jonathan
Sumption (1979) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Equality</i> London: John
Murray, p78.    Colleagues commenting on
previous versions have expressed surprise that I allow such an ‘outrageous’,
‘outstandingly silly’ statement to pass (Mario Bunge, Richard Sturn, personal
communications).    Again, to cite an
instance of a claim is not in any way to endorse that claim: I wholly share
those colleagues’ distaste.    <o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn11>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn11' href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[10]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Bernard de Mandeville in
Philip Harth (ed) (1970) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Bernard
Mandeville: The Fable of the Bees</i> London: Penguin.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">   This contains <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices Made Publick Benefits</i> (1705
and various dates under various names with accreted text) itself, and the
‘Vindication’ (1724) Mandeville published after the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>Fable</i> was arraigned before the Grand Jury of Middlesex as a public
nuisance.<o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn12>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn12' href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[11]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> A correspondent finds this
statement confusing: I seem to him to be conflating positive and normative
issues.    This confusion can be avoided
by mentally substituting ‘possession of property <i>x</i>’ for ‘evil’.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes">   The moral value, if any, of property <i>x</i>
is irrelevant when considering whether the possession of property <i>x</i> by
some macro-level entity or phenomenon requires or contradicts the possession of
property <i>x</i> by the substrate-level entities.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">   It just so happens that ‘evil’ is the property considered by the
representatives of the two theses adduced by Howarth.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes">   <o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn13>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn13' href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[12]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> Of course, this is not a
tight, one-to-one relationship: as Ian Steedman (personal communication) points
out, very different policy prescriptions may in various ways be made consistent
with similar methodological standpoints.  
  </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn14>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn14' href="#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[13]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> As the Duke of Edinburgh
memorably asserted on the Jimmy Young Programme, and as Robert Lucas still
believes (1987: 66-67)<o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn15>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn15' href="#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[14]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> A correspondent points out
that we cannot inhabit a ‘holistic world’ as holism is a doctrine, not a kind
of thing.    Clearly this is a shorthand
expression, a figure of speech, for a world in which a holistic standpoint
would be appropriate. <o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn16>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn16' href="#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[15]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> The reference is to Milton
Friedman (1962) <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Capitalism and Freedom</i>
Chicago: Chicago University Press, p13.<o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn17>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn17' href="#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[16]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> And cited in a highly
significant passage, setting out the meaning of the holist conception of
society, in Toynbee (1972: 43).<o:p></o:p> </p>

</div>

<div style='mso-element:footnote' id=ftn18>

<p class=MsoFootnoteText style='line-height:200%'><a style='mso-footnote-id:
ftn18' href="#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" title=""><span
class=MsoFootnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
10.0pt'><span style='mso-special-character:footnote'><![if !supportFootnotes]>[17]<![endif]>   </a><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'> I recognise that the
‘paradox’ will not seem very paradoxical if one starts out with different
expectations about the association, or otherwise, between reductionism and holism,
on the one hand, and the various possible policy prescriptions, on the
other.

Which is certainly not to say that idealist holism cannot be associated with
anything else: clearly – in so far as it feels a need for any philosophical
underpinning at all – fascism is associated with an even more blatantly
idealist holism.
