Darwin and societal development:
The genes of culture
To understand nature, knowledge of Darwin is a must. But can he also help us to understand society?
Yes he can, according to Norwegian economists Karl Ove Moene and Gaute Torsvik. Both are convinced that the theory of evolution may be used to explain important features of societal development. The Darwinian model is relevant for understanding some key characteristics of human cognition and motivation. And a good model of people's motives, say the two scholars, is a prerequisite for proper economic analysis. Furthermore, Darwin's concept of development through selection can explain how today's rules and practices that guide much of our behaviour have arisen.
Spanning disciplines: The theory of evolution and selection can help economists to understand processes within society. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Behavioural patterns
Economists are interested not so much in people's genes, but rather in studying the behavioural patterns that survive in a society. Which routines and technologies succeed best in competition with one another?
Kalle Moene
Why do most societies favour systems with private property rights as opposed to collective property systems? Why do indigenous peoples with collective property rights have a system of rules and customs that is destabilised by "mutations"? "For questions like these, the theory of evolution can help us economists to understand societal development," explains Professor Moene. He is a social economist at the University of Oslo and head of the Centre for the Study of Equality, Social Organization, and Performance (ESOP), one of the Research Council's Norwegian Centres of Excellence.
Darwin inspired by social science research
Until now, Darwin and evolutionary biology have had little scientific influence on economists, asserts Professor Moene. But economists have much to learn from biologists - and vice versa. "But to learn is not necessarily to imitate. It's more a matter of being inspired by each other."
The economics professor points out that Darwin himself was influenced by social science researchers. "In 1838 he read about the struggle for survival in Thomas Robert Malthus' essay 'The Principles of Population', which described the relationship between food supply and population growth. That steered him toward his theory of natural selection."
"The term 'survival of the fittest' does not even originate with Darwin, but rather with the British philosopher Herbert Spencer," Professor Moene reminds us.
Cultural genes
Gaute Torsvik, a professor of economics at the University of Bergen, explains how
Gaute Torsvik
culture can be viewed as a pool of "memes" - ideas and routines. These change over time through variation, adaption and selection. Memes could be called the genes of culture; they are replicable ideas that compete for attention. Some win, some lose, some survive and are passed on, while others disappear.
"I feel the analogy between selection in nature and selection of behavioural rules in society is very prescient. However," he cautions, "we mustn't overdo it when drawing parallels between biological and 'cultural' development."
Marx - an evolutionary economist
The Schumpeter tradition and game tradition in economics are both evolutionary, serving to explain essential characteristics of societal development. Game tradition focuses on characterising the balancing forces that yield an evolutionary stable equilibrium. The Schumpeter tradition, however, holds that social economics is an evolutionary process that can never attain a stationary state - the view espoused by Karl Marx, the most eminent economist of Darwin's time.
"Marx was a classic evolutionary economist," says Professor Moene. "The economic issues that Marx dealt with revolve around how and why manmade institutions change over time and how the drivers of change are themselves a product of the economic and social system."
Today's financial crisis
Marx explored how economic upswings also set the stage for economic downturns, and why capitalism is so prone to fluctuations between times of plenty and crisis. Perhaps Marx and evolutionary economics can teach us something about the current financial calamity?
"The financial sector in the USA is an example of a system that was not evolutionarily stable. It was exposed to both new innovations and intruders - mutations, so to speak. The intruders, the shell banks that entered the picture and earned loads of money, destabilised the entire system," explains Professor Moene. "Today we are witnessing the consequences."
- Published:
- 13.03.2009
- Last updated:
- 13.03.2009
