Metamodern Economics, Complexity, Networks, and the Rise of AEGIS: Toward an Integrated Theory of Socio-Economic Coordination

Abstract

This article synthesizes three distinct but complementary strands of contemporary economic thought—metamodern economics, complexity  economics, and network economics—into a unified framework for  understanding socio-economic coordination under fundamental uncertainty.  It argues that the modernist aspiration toward a single, universal economic mechanism and the postmodern reduction of all theory to mere power  narrative have both failed to capture the ontological depth of economic  reality. Metamodernism, understood as an attitude of ironic sincerity that  oscillates between theoretical commitment and reflexive distance, provides  the epistemological foundation for a genuinely pluralistic economic science.  Complexity economics contributes a process-ontological theory of  endogenous system evolution, modeling economic phenomena as  emergent products of non-linear, recursive interactions among adaptive  heterogeneous agents. Network economics contributes a structuralist graph  theory of economic relationships, modeling the topology of connections and  its causal effects on individual behavior and aggregate outcomes. The  article demonstrates that these two approaches are complementary rather  than competing: network economics possesses structure but lacks process  dynamics; complexity economics possesses process dynamics but lacks  structural precision. Their fusion, operationalized through dynamic agent- based network models with evolutionary graph dynamics and cross-scale  feedback loops, yields what may be termed evolutionary network  economics. Process economics, particularly in its dynamic variant, provides the missing algorithmic link between structure and process. The article then  traces the trajectory of this integrated framework toward its logical  culmination: the emergence of a metamodern superintelligence— designated AEGIS (Autonomous Economic Governance and Integration  System) — that arises asymptotically from the existing digital infrastructure without any singular moment of activation.