Volume 36 Issue 1 (2020)
-
Editorial
We’re back! Prometheus has not been published since 2017, when Taylor & Francis dropped the title as a solution to the challenges posed by our debate on shaken baby syndrome.…
-
How possible was Prometheus’ punishment?
We discuss the feasibility of the regeneration of Prometheus’ liver: would cells be able to regrow fast enough to allow Prometheus’ liver to be eaten every day by an eagle?…
-
The impact of increasing returns on knowledge and big data: from Adam Smith and Allyn Young to the age of machine learning and digital platforms
Allyn Young’s concept of increasing returns (not to be confused with static, equilibrium constructs of economies of scale and increasing returns to scale) is applied to analyse how and why…
-
Knowledge dialogues for better health: complementarities between health innovation studies and health disciplines
Health innovation studies and the health disciplines highlight the importance of using knowledge to improve human welfare. However, these disciplines rarely yield discussion about this issue. The objective of this…
-
The impact of the European patent system on SMEs and national states
A centralized and federal patent system in the EU changes economic and constitutional law structures by creating a ‘nationalized’ international patent. As the underlying economic policy has concentrated on the…
-
The Robot Revolution: Understanding the Social and Economic Impact, John Hudson (2019), Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 192pp., hardback £63, ISBN: 978 1 78897 447 9
The ancient Greeks believed that the swan reserves some of its most beautiful songs for its final days; hence the term ‘swan-song’. The Robot Revolution is John Hudson’s ‘swan-song’ –…
-
Reckoning with Matter: Calculating Machines, Innovation, and Thinking about Thinking from Pascal to Babbage, Matthew L. Jones (2016), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 336pp., cloth $35.00, ISBN: 978 0 226 41146 0
Reckoning with Matter is an essential book in an era obsessed with computing and rapidly losing sight of its mechanical heritage. Matthew Jones reveals the essential materiality and mechanicity of…
-
The Case for a Maximum Wage, Sam Pizzigati (2018), Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 140pp., paperback £9.99, ISBN 978 1 5095 2492 1
This is the first volume in a new series dubbed ‘the case for’ in the political economy section of Polity Press. The author, Sam Pizzigati, has a long track record…
-
Openness to Creative Destruction, Arthur M. Diamond Jr. (2019), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 304pp., paperback £2.99, ISBN 978-0-19-026367-6
The author is a well-known professor of economics in the United States. In this book, well researched and supported by numerous references, his philosophy of life is made clear –…
-
Innovation in Energy Law and Technology: Dynamic Solutions for Energy Transitions, Donald Zillman, Martha Roggenkamp, Leroy Paddock and Lee Godden (eds) (2018), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 449pp., hardback £95, ISBN 978 0 19 882208 0
Innovation in Energy Law and Technology is a decent and solid book that achieves exactly what it aims to accomplish. I consider this to be both praise and (mild) criticism,…