Abstract
Currently there is an ongoing discussion about how Darwinian concepts should be harnessed to further develop economic theory. Two approaches to this question, Universal Darwinism and the continuity hypothesis, are presented in this paper. It is shown whether abstract principles can be derived from Darwin’s explanatory model of biological evolution that can be applied to cultural evolution. Furthermore, the relation of the ontological basis of biological and cultural evolution is clarified. Some examples illustrate the respective potential of the two approaches to serve as a starting-point for theory development.
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Notes
The term “Universal Darwinism” was coined by Dawkins (1983).
Hodgson and Knudsen (personal communication) argue that abstraction removes the particular content from the specific domain in which a principle applies. Hence, they maintain, the abstract principle may be applied in different domains. On the other hand, Knudsen argues “… that an appreciation of the causal structure of neo-Darwinism may help develop a general selection theory which can be used as a basis for a development of evolutionary economics” (Knudsen 2002, p. 446). Obviously, some domain-specific content in the form of a ‘causal structure’ is reentering the argument here. Hodgson (2002, 2003) introduces socio-economic replicators such as habits, routines, and institutions, which are compared to DNA, and that are subsequently subject to selection processes. Again, some domain-specific contents from biology seem to inspire the development of the argument.
Most biologists, anthropologists, and geneticists today assume that natural selection is no longer a source of systematic change of the genetic endowment of man (see, e.g., Mayr 2001, p. 261f; Tomasello 1999a). Hence, the basic genetic endowment of man is very similar to the one that has been in place by the time natural selection stopped exerting a systematic influence on the human genome.
Modifications of the basic principles of Darwinism in the course of time, for example, Weismann’s neo-Darwinism or the evolutionary synthesis, did not call into question these foundations.
Hodgson and Knudsen (personal communication) claim that only these three principles are necessary and apply to both biological and socio-economic evolution.
While formal institutions—where institutions are defined as the recurrent coordination of individual interactions—are deliberately conceived and implemented, informal institutions can emerge as a consequence of repeated human action, not involving conscious human design (see, e.g., Smith 1993; Hayek 1967, p. 66ff). These institutions may subsequently be subject to deliberate considerations.
Knudsen claims that there are analogues of genotypes and phenotypes in the economic realm. He says that a “… replicator/interactor distinction is possibly such a general feature common to both social and biological systems” (Knudsen 2004, p. 157; see also Hodgson and Knudsen 2004). However, a clear-cut distinction between replicators and interactors in the cultural sphere is hardly possible. Knudsen concedes that it “… is further possible that a replicator in one hierarchy can function as an interactor in another” (Knudsen 2004, p. 157).
There are two kinds of selection: first, there is natural selection for general viability that improves adaptedness and, second, there is sexual selection, both leading to greater reproductive success (Mayr 1991, p. 164). As will be shown in this section, it is problematic to talk about ‘natural selection’ in the cultural sphere, as it is done by, for example, Knudsen (2002), who uses the term “economic natural selection”. The second kind of selection is definitely hard to identify in cultural evolution.
Knudsen states that in “… order to protect the replicator (routines or teams), the possibility of reverse influence from interactors to replicators must be restricted at a fundamental level in the nested hierarchy of replicators and interactors … If this were not the case, the stability needed to produce reliable feedback in a selection process might be lost“ (Knudsen 2004, p. 158).
Artifacts with similar purposes, for instance, can be designed to very different specifications and chosen for very different reasons (Ziman 2000, p. 7).
Although the existence of a common ontological basis with evolutionary biology is denied by some approaches to economics and Darwinian concepts are often applied in a more heuristic fashion, serious problems remain: true analogies do not hold and the metaphorical use of Darwinian principles risks concealing the real mechanisms underlying economic and cultural evolution.
Neoclassical economics has constructed a misleading analogy between Newtonian classical mechanics and the economic sphere.
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Acknowledgments
The author is very grateful to Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen for critical comments on an earlier version of this paper. The ideas presented here have developed in discussions with colleagues at the Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition in Manchester and the Max Planck Institute of Economics in Jena.
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Cordes, C. Darwinism in economics: from analogy to continuity. J Evol Econ 16, 529–541 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-006-0027-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-006-0027-3
Keywords
- Economic selection theory
- Economic theory development
- Darwinism
- Cultural evolution
- Continuity hypothesis