‘Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today.’ –Nietzsche
I predict that if we were to poll professional economists a century from now about who is the intellectual founder of the discipline, I say we’d get a majority responding by naming Charles Darwin, not Adam Smith. Smith, of course, would be the name out of 99% of economists if you asked the same question today. My claim behind that prediction is that in time, not next year, we’ll recognize that Darwin’s vision of the competitive process was just a lot more accurate and descriptive than Smith’s was. I say Smith’s–I really mean Smith’s modern disciples. Neoclassical economists. I think Smith was amazed that when you turn selfish people loose and let them seek their own interests, you often get good results for society as a whole from that process. I don’t think anybody had quite captured the logic of that narrative anywhere near as clearly as Smith had before he wrote. So, it’s a hugely important contribution. Smith, however, didn’t say you always got good results. He was quite circumspect about the claim. (…)
You go back and read Smith–it’s amazing his insights all across the spectrum have held up. Where I think he missed, or at any rate his modern disciples have missed a key feature of competition was–he saw clearly in a way that I don’t think others do yet, that competition favors individual actors. That’s what it does. Correct. Sometimes in the process it helps the larger group, but there are lots and lots of instances in which competition acts against the interests of the larger group. (…)
Familiar example from the Darwinian domain is the kinds of traits that have evolved to help individual animals do battle with one another for resources that are important. Think about polygynous mating species, the vertebrates; for the most part the males take more than one mate if they can. Obviously the qualifier is important; if some get more than one mate, you’ve got others left with none; and that’s the ultimate loser position in the Darwinian scheme. You don’t pass your stuff along into the next generation. So, of course the males fight with each other. If who wins the fights gets the mates, then mutations will be favored that help you win fights. So, male body mass starts to grow. Not without limit, but well beyond the point that would be optimal for males as a group.
