![]() ![]() These evolutionary lessons aren’t related to the two main flavors of critiques of economics that typically command attention. The authors present abundant “evidence that enforcement shapes cooperation across all levels of biology.” Enforcement is defined as “action that evolves … to reduce selfish behavior within a cooperative alliance.” Adding to copious real-world cases, modeling shows that whenever “new selfish elements are introduced to a population, the evolution of suppression is often rapid.” Otherwise, gains from selfishness get ruinously risky. The paper examines a “central puzzle”: “Why does evolution favor investment in cooperation rather than self-serving rebellion that would undermine a particular genome, organism or society?” Surely a topic of central concern to economists also. There’s no real argument about the fact that “the evolution of cooperation is central to all living things.” That’s the first line of a Nature Ecology & Evolution paper by the biologists Nicholas Davies, Kevin Foster and Arvid Ågren, and it expresses an utterly uncontroversial view among biologists. Biologists, unlike many economists, grasp when the “greed is good” ethos gets deadly. ![]() Nevertheless, economic ideas rule our lives, so it’s critical we apply Leslie Orgel’s second law (“evolution is cleverer than you”) specifically to economics.įor instance, it may surprise many non-biologists to learn that evolution isn’t only about red-in-tooth-and-claw competitive selfishness - it’s also “ruthlessly cooperative.” And protecting life-supporting cooperation requires suppressing certain kinds of selfishness. Unfortunately, economics hasn’t kept up with what natural scientists have discovered about life’s organizing secrets. Both involve “invisible hand” magic - intricate, unplanned, “self-organizing” systems. Jag Bhalla is an entrepreneur and writer.Įconomics and evolution are basically in the same business: Both are all about productivity selection, though one has been at it for billions of years longer than the other.
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