Predictions and hopes are different things. Predictions are based on past empirical observations. They single out what seem to be essential variables and the relationships between them and assume that their importance will prevail in the future. Hopes add a component to a prediction, namely an...

A few decades ago, a field of research called cultural studies suddenly experienced a surge of interest. Why? There are many reasons why it is worth taking a closer look. At first glance, you might think it was simply a fad at the time. Fashions are an omnipresent phenomenon in science, as in...

This paper combines one of the central questions of contemporary political economy, id est the conflict between China and the USA, with one of the major methodological advances in modelling technique, id est game theory. Of course, such a task goes far beyond the possibilities of a single...

Knowledge comes in two opposed forms – as structural property and as a process. Their interaction - in the time dimension as well as along a logical dimension - characterizes the evolution of knowledge. Knowledge only works, i.e. evolutes, via its presence in carrier media; be it books, hard...

Schumpeter’s idea that innovations can be described as new combinations often is understood as a mere metaphor and slight generalization of what he considers as the characterizing feature of entrepreneurship. The main argument of this paper is that more and deeper issues are involved in the...

This paper explores how the visions of a future global political economy might shape its actual emergence. The emergence of powerful visions themselves seems to follow a pattern of discrete steps in historical time; it follows a beat of emancipation. In Europe the fundamental note was provided by...

Standard economic textbooks usually start with the assumptions that there exists • a set of representative consumers with exogenously given, fixed preference structures, • a set of representative production units with exogenously given, fixed production functions, • a set of identical...

This paper starts with the methodological assumption that the description of the evolution of political economy needs two distinct components: a model of pulsating growth and a model of morphogenesis. These two elements are alternating in the course of time, deteriorating growth leading to...

As recent data on average weight of human individuals in OECD countries vividly documents the primary metabolism of human individuals, e.g. physical reproduction, already produces deteriorating results. The concept of needs in the sense of desires for primary reproduction necessities has to be...

This paper explores the interaction between the world of information processes in human society and the non-information dynamics, which the latter set out to understand. This broad topic is approached with a focus on evolutionary political economy: It turns out that progress in this scientific...