The Reflexive Laboratory as a Firm

This preprint argues that the Reflexive Laboratory is best understood as a firm-like cognitive production system rather than merely an AI-assisted writing workflow. Drawing on the economics of organization, it explains how division of labor, transaction costs, and principal-agent/control problems help account for the emergence of structured research environments built around threads, commands, registries, relay objects, and preserved traces. The package includes manuscript files and supporting transcript material.