Software-Agents and Liberal Order: An Inquiry along the Borderline between Economics and Computer Science Book

Part I.	Foundations
1	Computer science and economics - new actors and social order	3
1.1	From utopia via the present days into the future	3
1.2	Computer science and order for small worlds	6
1.3	Economics and order for the grand world	9
1.4	Machines as software-agents	12
1.5	Software-agents as new social actors	16
1.6	Summary	20
2.	Computer science's small worlds	21
2.1	Communication in agent-systems	22
2.2	Co-ordination and co-operation in agent-systems	23
2.3	Overview of approaches to co-ordination and co-operation	27
2.4	Summary	31
3.	Capturing the grand world with social and economic theory	33
3.1	Theory between economics and computer science	33
3.2	The state of nature as analytical reference point	36
3.3	Theories of the origin of order	39
3.4	A methodology for further analysis	41
3.5	Summary	46
4.	Liberalism	47
4.1	No perspective for Leviathan	47
4.2	The promises of liberal order	48
4.3	Freedom	51
4.3.1	Freedom and the individual	53
4.3.2	Freedom and the machine	56
4.4	Summary	58
Part II.	Constraints, behaviour and spontaneous order
5.	The order of rules - constraints for a liberal order	63
5.1	Liberal principles of social order	64
5.1.1	Non-domination	66
5.1.2	Exclusion	68
5.1.3	Contract	71
5.1.4	Priority	73
5.1.5	Few principles for a complex order of rules	74
5.2	Towards institutions of liberal order	76
5.2.1	Internalised institutions	78
5.2.2	Informal institutions	80
5.2.3	Formal private institutions	82
5.2.4	Formal legal institutions	84
5.2.5	A comprehensive typology of institutions	86
5.3	Conclusions	87
Appendix 5	Further constraints for software-agents	89
A5.1	Compatibility of market-oriented systems and liberal order	89
A5.2	Constraints for small worlds	90
6.	Actors prepared for liberal order	93
6.1	Questioning common software-agent design principles	94
6.1.1	Benevolence	95
6.1.2	Perfect rationality	96
6.1.3	Global third-party rule-internalisation	97
6.1.4	Natural slaves	98
6.2	Rigorous implementation of individualism	99
6.2.1	Identification	100
6.2.2	Incentive-orientation	101
6.2.3	Internalisation-capacity	103
6.3	Adaptive behaviour	104
6.3.1	Adaptive behaviour as a complement to unpredictable behaviour	105
6.3.2	Adaptive behaviour based on inductive reasoning	107
6.3.3	Adaptive behaviour-more than a model of individual behaviour	110
6.4	Conclusions	115
Appendix 6	Further preparation of software-agents for liberal order	118
A6.1	Functional differentiation and domain-specific software-agents	118
A6.2	Role-specific software-agents	120
7.	Spontaneous liberal order	123
7.1	The logic of spontaneous liberal order	125
7.1.1	Co-operation instead of conflict	126
7.1.2	Exchange	127
7.1.3	Exchange media	130
7.1.4	Division of labour and division of knowledge	134
7.1.5	Competition	137
7.1.6	Markets and hierarchies	140
7.1.7	Simple patterns for complex social order	146
7.2	Pitfalls of spontaneous liberal order	148
7.2.1	Power and rent-seeking	148
7.2.2	Public goods	150
7.2.3	Market dynamics	152
7.2.4	Path-dependence	156
7.2.5	Principal-agent problems	157
7.2.6	Unavoidable but tolerable pitfalls	160
7.3	Conclusions	162
8.	Final Conclusion	167
	Epilogue	169
	Bibliography	171