EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMICS & ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

Can biological evolutionary principles be adapted or modified to explain the origins and proliferation of new organizational and market forms?

What alternatives to neoclassical economics principles might socially construct a sustainable economy on a planet with finite nonrenewable resources and a fragile ecosystem?

• Is social evolution more a metaphor or an explanatory theory?• Darwinian inheritance or Lackmarckian acquired traits?• What social analogies to core biological concepts: genes species (org’l form), population, inheritance, generation?

Monkey’s Uncle

 Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin explained continuously emerging novel biological forms or attributes through population interactions with environments.

Evolutionary theory accounts for the historical genealogies of proliferating, divergent species.

Social evolution is rooted in the biological theory of evolution

Randomness of evolutionary paths - no progress toward an end-goal (teleology): the blind watchmaker & man is not the “Crown of Creation”

Instead, developments are recurrent, cumulative, probabilistic patterns with unpredictable paths (yet open to post facto understanding)

Core Bio-Evolution ConceptsPopulation: Organisms that share a common gene pool (Speciesdf = actually or potentially interbreeding organisms)

Variation: Modifications of forms are produced by chance via mutations, genetic coding errors of individual organisms

Natural Selection: Reproduction & survival of organisms whose heritable traits are better suited to existing environmental conditions

Retention: Persistence within a population of the selected variation(s) over successive generations

“Descent with modification” (Darwin): parents transfer their genetically altered & selected traits to their offspring

Inheritance involves transfer of modified genetic codes, by not of individually acquired attributes (a.ka. Lamarckian evolution)What are org’l evolution equivalents to biological concepts?

Species Adapt to Fit Niches

Phenotype (outward physical traits) retained because of adaptive advantages enjoyed by individuals with superior survival and reproduction

• Alpha gorillas acquire more mates than others

• Faster cheetahs survive to reproduce their genes

Genotype (internal inheritable info: the DNA code) retained when a phenotype survives encounters within its niche environment

Speciation: new populations of reproducing organisms capture scarce niche resources (“struggle for existence” within & between species)

Ecological Niche: environmental habit where a species lives and its functions within that biotic community (e.g., predator, prey)

Niche competition: Species struggle to adapt to conditions within local environments; but, only one species can occupy a given niche

Darwin observed finches’ beaks modified to fit Galapagos Islands’ plants

Smooth or Jerky?Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould (1972) proposed a punctuated equilibrium theory of evolutionary rates. Evolutionary changes occur in relatively short bursts (millennia), interspersed with long periods of comparative stasis (millions of years).

They attacked phyletic gradualism, the dominant idea of continually changing organisms, small degrees of adaptation to fit the environment. Fossil records show few intermediate forms, implying that many species change very little after their initial appearance. Many new species can emerge quickly after mass extinctions, such as the Yucatan asteroid collision that killed off most of the dinosaurs, opening diverse ecological niches for mammal species to populate.

Just horsin’ around…

Sociocultural Evolution

Continuity with sociobiology & evolutionary psychology (Wilson; Dawkins)

Do “selfish genes” determine all human action, culture, morality?

“Social Darwinism” ideology asserted that the fittest races & cultures inevitably dominate, thus justifying 19th c. Euro-American imperialism

After Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), social scientists tried to apply biological principles to explain sociocultural evolution

Herbert Spencer’s Larmarckian evolution posited a slow, steady progress toward equilibrium as individuals changed their habits, eventually achieving perfect adaptation. He popularized the notorious phrase “survival of the fittest.”

Theorists depicted increasingly advanced societies & cultures, typically because of technological innovations

• Morgan & Tylor: savagery, barbarism, civilization

• Marx: ancient, feudal, capitalist, socialist-communist

• Lenski: hunter-gatherer, horticultural, agrarian, industrial

Variation-Selection-RetentionSocial evolutionary theory must identify variation-selection-retention mechanisms creating and spreading new forms

Environmental conditions are sources of variation, constraining emergence of new org’l & market forms & selection for survival

• Technology is a major driving force creating macroeconomic growth (capital intensity, real wages) and the emergence of new markets for selling technological products & services

• Innovations create new niches for firms to enter & exploit; Businesses are technology carriers by applying science (patents)

Give examples of selection mechanisms to choose among variations:

• Market profit is primary main selection mechanism for competitive firms; economic markets weed out the inefficient firms• Professional judgments & political processes shape the selection of other org’l forms (nonprofit, public, voluntary, SMO)

Organizational Genetics

Evolutionary change involves new (re)combinations of dominant comps, selected at the organizational population level

Are comps org’l analogs to biological genes? Does “compool” = genotype?

Org’l genetics emphasizes transmissible & communicable characteristic traits selected by environmental conditions

Comps: basic knowledge and skills, carried in individual minds, transmitted via communication & personnel exchanges with other organizations

Technologies, procedural guidelines, patents, job descriptions, premiums, determined prescriptions

Bill McKelvey & Howard Aldrich (1982; 1983) proposed a schema to classify organizational forms by their dominant “comps” (competence elements). Populations are polythetic clusters of organizations with similar dominant comps that are transferable among org’l members.

Routines as Genes

Routines: formal and tacit rules or capabilities internal to an organization that affect its activities & productivity

• Standard operating routines governing existing resource stocks

• Investment routines responding to changing profits, growth

• Search routines for innovative technologies (R&D)

Is routine is equivalent to gene, but org analogous to species phenotype?

Richard Nelson & Sidney Winter (1982) developed an evolutionary economics theory using computer simulations of industry growth.

Evolution produces monopoly: firms are selected because differing profit rates yield varied growth. But, entry of new firms into industry restrains monopoly, as can innovation-imitation processes that increase productivity variation among firms. Org’l routines a major source of genetic variation.

Environmental EconomicsEnvironmental economists concerned about ecosystem protection & conservation often clash with neoclassical economics principles.

Green economists argue that, in the very long run, resources are not limitless. Man-made capital cannot substitute for natural capital to provide raw materials, energy resources, food & biodiversity, sinks for air & water pollution, climate regulation.

New principles must be developed to create a sustainable economy within our finite biosphere.

1. Limit resource use rates to levels of waste that the ecosystem can absorb

2. Exploit renewable resources to rates not exceeding ecosystem’s regeneration

3. Deplete nonrenewable resources at rates that don’t exceed the development of renewable substitutes

Self-Interest Runs Amok

Any resource commons – such as public pasture or an ocean fishery – is prone to suboptimal collective outcomes resulting from individuals’ rational utility-maximizing choices. A bigger boat means more wealth for a fisherman; but too many boats, chasing too few fish, eventually decimate the fishing ground.

A Tragedy of the Commons situation occurs when two or more reinforcing loops depend on the availability of some limited common resource. Initially, using the resource reinforces positive gains in each loop. But, total activity ultimately exceeds the resource capacity, negatively affecting individual gains in each loop.

Garrett Hardin’s (1968) “Tragedy of the Commons” is a classic example of the inability of man-made capital to substitute for natural capital.

What incentives and/or sanctions might avoid a commons tragedy or restore its resource levels? Taxes, credits, fines …

Environmental SociologyEnvironmental sociology, an academic spin-off from the environmental movement, theorizes & investigates sustainable development issues.

Important threads also run from the sociology of natural resources, rural sociology, political economy, and human ecology perspectives.

Geography and anthropology may also contribute toward creation of a truly multi-disciplinary approach to understanding how to improve global well-being during the coming era of limited economic growth.

Whatever their origins as material conditions, most environmental problems are socially constructed as the perceptions & beliefs of scientists, economists, media, activists, and other interest groups. Resolving conflicts of environment and economy ultimately requires the negotiation of politically feasible solutions.

References

Darwin, Charles. 1859. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.

Eldredge, Niles and Stephen Jay Gould. 1971. “Speciation and Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism.” Pp. 82-115 in Models in Paleobiology, edited by T.J.M. Schopf. San Francisco: Freeman Cooper.

Hardin, Garrett. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162:1243-1248.

McKelvey, Bill. 1982. Organizational Systematics: Taxonomy, Evolution, Classification. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

McKelvey, Bill and Howard E. Aldrich. 1983. “Populations, Natural Selection, and Applied Organizational Science.” Administrative Science Quarterly 28:101-128.

Nelson, Richard and Sidney Winter.1982. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1858. “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type.” Linnean Society of London Proceedings 3:53-62.