Complexity science-made possible by modern analytical and computational advances-is changing the way we think about social systems and social theory. Unfortunately, economists' policy models have not kept up and are stuck in either a market fundamentalist or government control narrative. While these standard narratives are useful in some cases, they are damaging in others, directing thinking away from creative, innovative policy solutions. Complexity and the Art of Public Policy outlines a new, more flexible policy narrative, which envisions society as a complex evolving system that is uncontrollable but can be influenced. David Colander and Roland Kupers describe how economists and society became locked into the current policy framework, and lay out fresh alternatives for framing policy questions. Offering original solutions to stubborn problems, the complexity narrative builds on broader philosophical traditions, such as those in the work of John Stuart Mill, to suggest initiatives that the authors call "activist laissez-faire" policies. Colander and Kupers develop innovative bottom-up solutions that, through new institutional structures such as for-benefit corporations, channel individuals' social instincts into solving societal problems, making profits a tool for change rather than a goal. They argue that a central role for government in this complexity framework is to foster an ecostructure within which diverse forms of social entrepreneurship can emerge and blossom.
Acknowledgments vii PART I. THE COMPLEXITY FRAME FOR POLICY Chapter 1. Twin Peaks 3 Chapter 2. Government With, Not Versus, the Market 19 Chapter 3. I Pencil Revisited: Beyond Market Fundamentalism 31 Chapter 4. The Complexity Policy Frame 44 PART II. EXPLORING THE FOUNDATIONS Chapter 5. How Economics Lost the Complexity Vision 67 Chapter 6. How Macroeconomics Lost the Complexity Vision 89 Chapter 7. Complexity: A New Kind of Science? 109 Chapter 8: A New Kind of Complexity Economics? 131 Chapter 9. Nudging toward a Complexity Policy Frame 156 PART III. LAISSEZ-FAIRE ACTIVISM IN PRACTICE Chapter 10. The Economics of Influence 179 Chapter 11. Implementing Influence Policy 195 Chapter 12. Laissez-Faire Activism 214 Chapter 13. Getting the Ecostructure of Government Right 237 PART IV. THE LOST AGENDA Chapter 14. Getting the Ecostructure of Social Science Education Right 259 Chapter 15. The Lost Agenda 270 Notes 281 Bibliography 291 Index 301
