Economics as “a Story Engine”: John D. McDonald and Business as Game and Gamble

IF 1.2 2区历史学 Q3 ECONOMICS

History of Political Economy Pub Date : 2023-08-17 DOI:10.1215/00182702-10875031

T. Mata

引用次数: 1

Abstract

John D. McDonald was a writer and editor best known for his work at Fortune magazine in the 1950s and 1960s and as the ghostwriter of the memoirs of Alfred P. Sloan. McDonald was also the first person to popularize game theory. In this article I argue that game theory played a key role in McDonald's transition from documentary writer to business journalist. Game theory gave McDonald a journalistic device to discover business stories and to give those stories a driving tension; he called it a “story engine.” After decades writing with game theory, it began to serve a different purpose for McDonald. By coding business stories as games, McDonald gained insight into the characters, corporate executives who were often brief in explanations and shallow in self-understanding. McDonald's career gives us a glimpse at an extraordinary transformation of how a set of scholarly ideas can become a literary resource for vividness (of stories) and depth (of characters).

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经济学是“故事引擎”：约翰·麦克唐纳和商业是游戏和赌博

约翰·麦克唐纳是一位作家和编辑，因其在20世纪50年代和60年代在《财富》杂志的工作以及阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆回忆录的代笔而闻名。麦克唐纳也是第一个普及博弈论的人。在这篇文章中，我认为博弈论在麦当劳从纪录片作家到商业记者的转变中发挥了关键作用。博弈论为麦当劳提供了一种发现商业故事的新闻手段，并使这些故事具有驱动力；他称之为“故事引擎”。在用博弈论写作了几十年后，它开始为麦当劳服务。通过将商业故事编码为游戏，麦当劳深入了解了这些角色，即那些解释简短、自我理解肤浅的企业高管。麦克唐纳的职业生涯让我们得以一窥一套学术思想如何成为（故事）生动性和（人物）深度的文学资源的非凡转变。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

History of Political Economy Multiple-

CiteScore

1.20

自引率

14.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Focusing on the history of economic thought and analysis, History of Political Economy has made significant contributions to the field and remains its foremost means of communication. In addition to book reviews, each issue contains original research on the development of economic thought, the historical background behind major figures in the history of economics, the interpretation of economic theories, and the methodologies available to historians of economic theory. All subscribers to History of Political Economy receive a hardbound annual supplement as part of their subscription.