The Uses of Diversity: Essays in Polycentricity

(Hardback)

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The author argues for the virtues of diversity in cities, organizations, strategies for development, and human discourse in general. The opening chapter develops the vision of Jane Jacobs (the "diva of diversity") for the development of city regions. Many of the later chapters are based on the author's ten years in the World Bank and Senior Advisor and speechwriter for Joseph Stiglitz. Many of the problems in the World Bank's policies were based on a narrow ideological vision that did not tolerate a diversity of pragmatic approaches to the complex questions of economic and social development. Finally, the narrow social-engineering criterion for evaluating social projects is cost-benefit analysis, and the penultimate chapter develops a logical fallacy in the Kaldor-Hicks Principle that is the theoretical basis for cost-benefit analysis.

Reviews

"David Ellerman is one of the most creative and original thinkers in today's social sciences. His contract theory of power in corporations has the rare combination of being both revolutionary and feasible. This collection of essays are challenging orthodox thinking in the social sciences and particularly in economics. They are not only well written, but also wonderfully provocative."--Bo Rothstein, University of Gothenburg
"For more than sixty centuries humans languished under centralized hierarchies - monarchies, oligarchies, theocracies and feudal, fascist, communist or klepto-aristocracies - and all proved spectacularly awful at statecraft. Gradually, it dawned on us that nature abhors oversimplification, for some very good reasons. The Uses of Diversity: Essays in Polycentricity explores many of the opportunities and constraints that have started, gradually, allowing human societies to reap benefits from complexity."--David Brin, author of The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom

Author Bio

David Ellerman is formerly of the World Bank.