Hi, does anyone have any favorite readings about Darwin in relation to
political economy from which he derived analogies, homologies, and/or
metaphors for the development of his theory of descent with modification
through the mechanism of natural selection? There is of course a chapter
review in Geoffrey Hodgson's Economics and Evolution, the bibliography is
quite good as well. But if anyone has any further recommendations, I would
appreciate it.
Thanks,
Rakesh
"...the industrial revolution directed interest into a field of objective
quality subject to rapid change; that of biology. It made Man look for
change everywhere, and began the development of all the evolutionary
sciences: not merely biology, but also geology, cosmogony and the like.
This [Darwinian] picture of evolution was also given a characteristic
distortion."
--Christopher Caudwell, The Crisis of Physics, 1939
"Schumpeter's basic idea was that evolution is the result of qualitative
novelties, which in economics have their roots in the continuous product of
our minds: inventions. These in turn led to economic innovations, which
according to Schumpeter were not limited to the technological domain. We
owe to Schumpeter the essential...distinction between growth (mere
accretion) and development (in economics or in biology). His splendid
aphorism, "Add Successively as many mail coaches as you please,, you will
never get a railway thereby," tells a lot about what evolution means...
"...Schumpeter's theory...was independently thought up some thirty years
later by a renowned biologist, R Goldschmidt (1940). Against the prevailing
neo Darwinian view that speciation results from the accumulation of small,
imperceptible modifications, Goldschmidt maintained that species derive
from the emergence of 'successful' monsters. By analogy a railway engine is
a successful monster in comparison to a mail coach.
"To gauge the depth of Schumpeter's vision we should note that explanation
of speciation by successful monsters has recently been revived by one of
the greatest minds in contemporary biology, Stephen Jay Gould."
--Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 1990.
