自然的经济史 – 海尔特·J·弗尔迈伊

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1. books51

   2017/06/02

   This book concerns the intersection of economics and nature. But the translated title（自然经济史）is subject to an ambiguity that can lead to two interpretations:

   1. Application of economic theories to evolution of nature. （用经济理论解释自然进化历史）
   2. Application of evolutionary theories to economic.（用自然进化论解释经济历史）

   The book mainly deals with the first contention. But confused by this title, I went on researching the second one prior to reading the book. You can now imagine my tilted and disbelieved face after finishing the first few pages. Nonetheless, in this review, I intend to provide summary on the second context as educational info. in addtion to review on this book. After all, the convergence of the two fields is an interesting topic.

   Part I – Book Review – Application of Economics to Nature

   The author of this book used economic theories to explan the evolution of nature not the other way around. He stressed in early section that economic principles of supply and demand has a stake in the evolution of life. For instance, the relationship between lions and zabras can be seen as demand of predators and supply of preys. Both species’ natural and physical attributes have thus been shaped by balance of demand and supply. If lion’s population tends to be relatively small to zabra, then lion’s physical and hunting abilities would be inferior, because each lion would have more supply requiring it to hunt less. The author then uses consumer and producer to characterise living creatures, among which producers are at the bottom of food chain and consumers are at the top. But such titling and categorizing have little essential value, because the distinction simply restated what we already know about the mechanism of natural food chain.

   Relating to the supply demand analysis is the cost-benefit ratio of predator and prey. The ratio is determined by prey’s capability to just escape predators or predator’s capability to just catch preys. That makes sense because a capability merely to escape or catch ensures no waste of precious energy and implies a smart strategy of energy allocation for both parties. But the author also attempts that human and nonhuman economics are essentially the same. He really goes too far on this, because for example human trades and exchanges are involuntary and intentional, whereas nonhuman creatures are amenable to exchanges because of natural selection. He also indicates a contention controversial to mainstream economists that the West civilization prospered due to her abundant natural resources. Personally, I think stock of natural resource is neither a sufficiency nor a necessity responsible for the wellbeing of western civilization. Japan serves as a convincing evidence to refute this contention.

   This book also addresses history of Western economy in later chapters as occasional bearing to biology and evolution. But it can be suspected that there are some unsupported thesis weakening its overarching positions in these chapters. Nonetheless, the author provides some keen observations to the linkage of nature and economics. He also makes some acute speculations, which seem lack supporting evidence and might be susceptible to logical fallacies. Lastly, since it is cross-discipline, I find it hard to read but enjoyable as one can spot some sparkling insights. Hope you guys enjoy them too.

   Part II – Application of Darwinism to Economics

   Social science is an open system. Usefulness of evolution theory in parallel discipline is restricted by its very openness. Thorsten Veblen in 1898 took an initial view on the subject and stated that economics is not an evolutionary science but a path dependent science. But Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman both had partially validate evolutionary application in explaining complicated economic theories.

   Although from 1982, Nelson and Winter published the book that recognized this study and recieved great public attention, the evolution theory has not been successful in permeating economic community. The main reason is that biological concepts simply can not be parallely applied to economics. What are the concepts that can properly characterize a gene pool or selection mechanism in economic sense? A minor reason is combination of evolution and economics remind people of Social Darwinism and its notorious political fermentation.

   A few critics do believe that Darwinism can have wider application in fields other than biology, for instance technology, but its application in economics should be carefully scruntinized. Despite a few successful cases already exist, for example evolutionery explanation of game theory, such applications are narrowly limited to their underlying areas, and a new paradigm connecting majority of dots in economics and possessing the ability to overwhelm existing economic spectrum seems unlikely to appear, at least in the near future. The future of improved understanding of economic by evoluation probably lies in the area of knowledge. Knowledge like an organism can be shaped by various forces that are similar to natural forces. Our knowledge about weapson has been driven by power and military conflicts, which are then affected by polulation and political orientation. So at least there are something we can look forward to.

   By HartmannJG52
   2012.10.01

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