Office for History of Science and Technology

Berkeley Colloquia in History of Science and Technology - Fall 2009
Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (UC Berkeley)

S.M.Amadae
The Ohio State University

"Rationalizing Hegemony: How the Cold War Nuclear Standoff Naturalized the Game Theoretic Prisoner's Dilemma into the Common Model for Cooperation, Collective Action, and the Social Contract"

When first unleashed upon the world in 1944 by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, game theory promised to be relevant to economists. Until the 1980s most economists eschewed game theory because it seemed more pertinent to warfare than mutual exchange. Indeed, the mathematics of dual constraint optimization (linear programming) and zero-sum game theory are identical. Most historians agree that game theory did not prove as useful to problems of old war military planning as had originally been hoped. Yet by the end of the 20th century, game theory and its most analyzed model, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, have come to provide the foundation for unifying the behavioral sciences extending from social contract theory to evolutionary biology. Game theory is touted as the “lexicon of life.” Organisms’ brain structure is thought to have evolved to reflect the axioms of rational choice as a condition of their survival.
Amadae argues that it was the Cold War nuclear strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) that first vindicated game theory and the Prisoner’s Dilemma as indicative of human conduct. This central 20th-century portal, commanding the attention of statesmen, scientists, and citizens alike, is that through which game theory came to ground post-World War II political economy and to distance the neoliberal actor from his liberal predecessor. The urgency and nightmarish proportions of the Cold War nuclear standoff normalized a paradigm of irreconcilable distrust reflected in the wide-scale application of the World War II dueling model of action to mundane social interactions forming the fabric of civil society. The pith of this neoliberal logic of action is that self-defense requires the pursuit of hegemony.

4:00PM
Monday, September 14, 2009
279 Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley

Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: ohst@berkeley.edu

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				Berkeley Colloquia in History of Science and Technology - Fall 2009 Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (UC Berkeley) S.M.Amadae The Ohio State University "Rationalizing Hegemony: How the Cold War Nuclear Standoff Naturalized the Game Theoretic Prisoner's Dilemma into the Common Model for Cooperation, Collective Action, and the Social Contract" When first unleashed upon the world in 1944 by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, game theory promised to be relevant to economists. Until the 1980s most economists eschewed game theory because it seemed more pertinent to warfare than mutual exchange. Indeed, the mathematics of dual constraint optimization (linear programming) and zero-sum game theory are identical. Most historians agree that game theory did not prove as useful to problems of old war military planning as had originally been hoped. Yet by the end of the 20th century, game theory and its most analyzed model, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, have come to provide the foundation for unifying the behavioral sciences extending from social contract theory to evolutionary biology. Game theory is touted as the “lexicon of life.” Organisms’ brain structure is thought to have evolved to reflect the axioms of rational choice as a condition of their survival. Amadae argues that it was the Cold War nuclear strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) that first vindicated game theory and the Prisoner’s Dilemma as indicative of human conduct. This central 20th-century portal, commanding the attention of statesmen, scientists, and citizens alike, is that through which game theory came to ground post-World War II political economy and to distance the neoliberal actor from his liberal predecessor. The urgency and nightmarish proportions of the Cold War nuclear standoff normalized a paradigm of irreconcilable distrust reflected in the wide-scale application of the World War II dueling model of action to mundane social interactions forming the fabric of civil society. The pith of this neoliberal logic of action is that self-defense requires the pursuit of hegemony. 4:00PM Monday, September 14, 2009 279 Dwinelle Hall UC Berkeley Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350 University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350 tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: ohst@berkeley.edu
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