![]() The predictable reaction is liberal fideism, which insists ever more stridently on the truth of liberalism’s unverifiable and potentially self-defeating claims. Having dispensed with the superintending design of Providence in favor of contingent, indirect mechanisms, liberalism is astonished to find that there is no guiding hand to ensure the fulfillment of its own faith. Given this structural propensity toward imperfect realization of liberal invisible hand systems, liberalism stands in an unhappy, and chronically unstable, halfway posture, caught between a preliberal faith in the invisible hand of Providence and self-destructive appreciation of its own contingency. ![]() The main mechanisms are the depletion of preliberal social capital and public choice problems, both of which cause the agents posited by liberalism to act in ways that subvert the invisible hand processes themselves. Second, there are self-undermining mechanisms within liberalism itself that threaten to prevent its invisible hand systems from fully realizing their promise. 1 By the terms of their creation, it is not generally possible to verify whether they are performing as promised. First, a dilemma of verification afflicts invisible hand systems, in virtue of their indirect structure. This is no happenstance, but a consequence of systematic problems that arise when liberal theory dispenses with the invisible hand of Providence in favor of secular mechanisms. Yet liberal faith in these systems far outruns any of the social-scientific mechanisms or evidence adduced to support them. Director Ron Howard took a few liberties to try to simplify Nash's discovery.Liberalism as a concrete sociopolitical order rests upon a series of invisible hand systems: free competition in explicit economic markets, free competition in the marketplace of ideas, institutional competition among branches of government, and so on. The scene in the film cannot be a Nash equilibrium since if no one goes for the blonde, each of the friends best strategy – given what their friends is doing – is to go for the blonde! Therefore, as soon as one guy decides to go after the blonde, the agreement not to pursue her falls apart and chaos reigns! Oops. A Nash equilibrium occurs when economic decision-makers choose the best possible strategy, taking into account the decisions of others. There is just one problem – the economic explanation in the bar scene is wrong! The scene that was just described is NOT a Nash equilibrium. ![]() OK, because the best result would come from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself and the group."Īt this point Nash rushes out the bar and spends the next few months writing his treatise on general equilibrium theory. "Adam Smith said that the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself, right? That's what he said. That's the only way we win."īut his friend quickly adds, "If this is someway for you to get the blonde you can go to #%^*!" But what if no one goes for the blonde? We don't get in each others way and we don't insult the other girls. Then when we strike out, none of her friends will have us because no one likes to be second choice. "Everyman for himself, gentlemen" says one of Nash's friends.Īnd another adds, "and those who strike out are stuck with their friends."Įventually the blonde looks over at Nash, and he joins the conversation, "Adam Smith needs revision." Nash goes on to state that no one should pursue the blonde since they will all "block each other and not a single one of us will get her. Five girls enter the establishment and Nash and his friends start contemplating who will get the blonde.Įventually the conversation turns to Adam Smith and one of his famous quotes, "In competition, individual ambition serves the common good." In the movie, Nash's eureka moment occurs while he is with his friends in a bar. A Beautiful Mind chronicles the life of John Nash, a mathematician at Princeton who changed the way in which economists view the world.
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