Evolutionary Theory and Economic Theory

Abstract

The earlier chapters addressed the importance of viewing the human economy as a subset of larger environmental processes. The economy depends on those processes for its continued existence and in turn directly helps to shape the characteristics of that larger system. Throughout human history the economy and the environment have been bound together in a coevolving system. In simpler societies it is easy to see the relationship between ecosystems and socio-economic systems. When humans depended directly on daily flows from the environment they had, by necessity, rules which ensured that the subsistence base remained intact. In modern market economies with roundabout production and layer upon layer of social stratification it is much harder to see the role of the environment in perpetuating the economic system Just as recent advances in our knowledge of human evolutionary history can help us understand current environmental crises, so can modern evolutionary theory help us understand the workings of modern economic systems. The discovery of processes such as punctuated equilibrium, coevolution, and self-organization has led to a new understanding of how complex systems work. From this new understanding we can gain insights which can help us address the conflict between the environment and the industrial economy and to find the path to a sustainable relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world.

For all their use of the term ‘dynamic,’ neither Mr. [J.B.] Clark nor any of his associates in this line of research have yet contributed anything at all appreciable to a theory of genesis, growth sequence, change, process, or the like in economic life.

Thorstein Veblen