The publication in 1983 of "Laws of Chaos, A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy" by Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshe Machover was an event of genuine theoretical innovation in the field of political economy. The book was a response to the impasse reached by the input-output method of representing an economy, in particular when applied to the theory of economic value. Farjoun and Machover's innovations include the systematic introduction of probabilistic modelling, statistical mechanics, and probabilistic laws to the field of political economy. They rejected the adequacy of deterministic models to capture essential features of a dynamic and distributed market economy, which they viewed as a complex system characterised by a huge number of degrees of freedom. Employing probabilistic arguments, Farjoun and Machover developed a broad model of the capitalist economy that, in contrast to deterministic approaches, had a more immediate connection to empirical reality and yielded important and theoretically distinct, macroeconomic conclusions, including probabilistic laws governing the relationship between price and labour-content, the distribution of the profit rate, and the tendency of labour productivity to increase.

2008 is the 25th anniversary of the publication of Farjoun and Machover's book and the aim of the conference is to celebrate this event. In particular, the conference will concentrate on four main themes:

• "Laws of Chaos", a reflection on the reception and subsequent impact of Farjoun and Machover's book,
•  "Theory and methods", an exploration of the concept of statistical equilibrium in political economy, and
•  "Models and empirical reality", investigations of specific non-deterministic, economic models and their relationship to empirical data.
• "Disequilibrium and out-of-equilibrium dynamics", examinations of the disequilibrium properties and empirical plausibility of non-deterministic models of capitalism.

Our aim is to reflect on the past and stimulate the next 25 years of the research programme of probabilistic political economy. 

Download "Laws of Chaos"

Laws of Chaos, A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy, Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshé Machover, Verso 1983 

Organising committee

Julian Wells, Senior Lecturer in Economics at Kingston University, UK. j.wells AT kingston DOT ac DOT uk

Eric Sheppard, Professor of Economic Geography, University of Minnesota, USA. sheppard AT atlas DOT socsci DOT umn DOT edu

Ian Wright, Research Student, Department of Economics, Open University, UK. iw247 AT student DOT open DOT ac DOT uk