On connecting socialism and mathematics: Dirk Struik, Jan Burgers, and Jan Tinbergen
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: On connecting socialism and mathematics: Dirk Struik, Jan Burgers, and Jan Tinbergen
zbMATH Open document ID: 0812.01047
author: Gerard Alberts
published in: Historia Mathematica
publication date: 1994-11-10T00:00:00Z
review text: On the background of some career and other biographical information, the article discusses the different ways which Dirk Struik (b. 1894), Jan M. Burgers (1895-1981) and Jan Tinbergen (1903-1994) -- all three students of Paul Ehrenfest -- combined socialist politics with mathematics. It is concluded that ``Struik's views on mathematics were the most radical, asserting that mathematical conceptions can better be understood in conjunction with larger social and intellectual processes. By contrast, of the three his mathematics changed the least under the influence of external factors. [\dots] Burgers and Tinbergen illustrate [how] the social context affects a mathematician's work. Their novel ideas helped launch a new paradigm for using mathematics to address social problems, viz. the notion of mathematical modeling'' (abstract, p. 280). The detailed information provided in the article, however, not only provides the basis for this conclusion but also suggests further remarks and inferences. Firstly, Struik and the young Burgers shared a radical political commitment, seeing political activity first of all as an obligation -- most forcefully in Struik's case; later in life, Burgers became engaged in socially responsible planning of scientific research. Tinbergen, (quasi) Nobel prize for economics in 1969, is cited for speaking in his dissertation instead of political ambition. As the others, he considered himself a socialist, but already from his political debut in the twenties this simply meant government management of the market -- later, his ``socialism'' came to be identified with the application of econometrics, which was to define not only political means but also the social goals to be pursued (p. 301). What is seen by the author as Tinbergen's innovative combination of mathematics and politics is thus simply a claim (strongly disputed by certain other schools of economics, not to speak of sociologists and political scientists) that Walrasian-Paretian welfare eco…
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A70
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A60
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A65
zbMATH DE Number: 672363
zbMATH Keywords: mathematical modelling
zbMATH Keywords: Dutch science
zbMATH Keywords: science and society
zbMATH Keywords: econometrics
reviewed by: Jens Høyrup
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: hmat.1994.1026
OpenAlex ID: W2027348348
cites work: Q5838351
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DOI: 10.1006/HMAT.1994.1026
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 672363