Jewish Invention Myths: Game Theory

In addition to the myth that the jew John von Neumann invented modern computer architecture and the ‘von Neumann machine’; (1) he is also widely credited with having invented game theory by prominent jews such as former British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. (2)

The problem with this is that it simply isn’t true and von Neumann – as with modern computer architecture – appears to have appropriated the work of others as his own. This is because von Neumann is best known for his in 1928 article on game theory ‘Theory of Parlor Games’ and his book – co-authored with Oskar Morgenstern – ‘Theory of Games and Economic Behavior’ published the same year that widened the application of game theory to other fields other than mathematics.

Because von Neumann and Morgenstern widened the application of game theory however doesn’t mean they invented game theory let alone systemized it; they merely widened its application to a whole series of other fields outside of mathematics. However, even in this they were not the first as we will see.

All this is easier to understand when we point out that von Neumann used the game poker as the basis of his understanding of game theory (3) while Borel and other early game theorists used everything from the French card game ‘Le her’ to chess.

The first mathematician to actively systemise game theory was the Frenchman Emile Borel who wrote a series of papers between 1921 and 1927 which systemized the strategy of games – what we call game theory – as the Encyclopaedia Britannica admits:

‘He [Borel] completed a series of papers on game theory (1921–27) and became the first to define games of strategy.’ (4)

This is seven years before von Neumann wrote his first paper and then co-authored his famous book with Morgenstern on game theory in 1928, but because von Neumann wrote in English and Borel in French. It is hardly surprising that Borel’s work wasn’t widely picked up while von Neumann’s – always a superb self-publicist and by all accounts an extreme narcissist – (5) was.

It is worthwhile pointing out that von Neumann’s priority for inventing game theory was disputed early on the 1950s with von Neumann’s desperately trying to defend his attempt to gazump Borel by claiming that because Borel rejected von Neumann’s minimax theorem therefore Borel didn’t deserve credit for inventing game theory. (6)

However, as Maurice Frechet pointed out at the same time this was – and is - a nonsense argument made by von Neumann:

‘The objections made to the work of their predecessors are of the same nature as those that can be presented against any theory. No theory takes everything into account; there will always be a more complete one; but the early one will retain its value as a less refined approximation. That, indeed, is what will happen to the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern itself; it will one day be obsolete, but it will certainly remain in the history economic science (associated with the pioneering notes of Borel) as having contributed clear results and opened new horizons.’ (7)

If we remove the academic language and niceties from Frechet’s statement here; the point, he is making is that von Neumann is trying to assert priority (i.e. first discovery) over Borel but the logic he is using means that when somebody else improves on von Neumann’s version of game theory then von Neumann ‘didn’t discover game theory’ in his desperate logic where he is attempting to justify his priority and why he should be allowed to gazump Borel.

In essence von Neumann is engaging in a game of what the historian Paul Johnson called ‘logical fiddlesticks’ (aka a nonsense argument that sounds very intelligent but is actually very stupid) in his book ‘Intellectuals’, but Frechet also takes this further by pointing out that Borel did apply game theory to other fields than just mathematics and the study of probability which further smacks von Neumann’s claim of priority for six. (8)

In addition to this it is worth noting that that the first modern game theory concept is the Waldegrave problem which dates from 1713 and is attributed to the member of the British gentry Charles Waldegrave, (9) while the first use of von Neumann’s vaunted minimax theorem is found in what we called the Nash Equilibrium that was first arrived at in the context of what we’d now call game theory applied to economics by the French mathematician Antoine Augustin Cournot in 1838. (10)

Thus, we can see that not only was von Neumann the first person not to systemize game theory – that was Emile Borel – but his vaunted minimax theorem was also invented nearly a century earlier and applied to economics by Antoine Augustin Cournot.

So, no John von Neumann – and thus also jews - did not invent game theory!

References

(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-modern-computer

(2) https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/mikketz/jews-economics/

(3) https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/1998-99/game-theory/neumann.html

(4) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emile-Borel

(5) https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/1998-99/game-theory/neumann.html

(6) John von Neumann, 1953, ‘Communication on the Borel Notes’, Econometrica, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 124-127

(7) Maurice Frechet, 1953, ‘Commentary on the Three Notes of Emile Borel’, Econometrica, Vol. 21, No. 1, p. 124

(8) Maurice Frechet, 1953, ‘Emile Borel, Initiator of the Theory of Psychological Games and Its Application’, Econometrica, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 95-96

(9) David Bellhouse, 2007, ‘The Problem of Waldegrave’, Journal Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilites et de la Statistique, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 1-2

(10) Qin Cheng-Zhong, Charles Stuart, 1997, ‘Bertrand versus Cournot Revisited’, Economic Theory, Vol. 10, pp. 497-498