Charles Darwin and Adam Smith

But biologists are often central planners. Oh hey look, biodiversity over there is collapsing due to some newly-evolved disease. Let’s go intervene. In Klingspeak: we technocrats know how to tweak the ecosystem better than Nature does.

In any case I would caution being too enthusiastic about comparing biological evolution with market evolution. Biological evolution is messy and violent and often horrifying – after all, it relies on the unfit meeting assorted horrible ends, at least sooner than the fit do. If an accurate parallel to economics existed, everyone would be a statist.

Ridley: “Yet if the market needs no central planner, why should life need an intelligent designer?”

The parallel between evolution and free markets breaks down because free markets are intelligently designed. Evolution is pure chance, nothing but a roll of the dice. Markets are designed by people, sometimes thought of as intelligent life forms. The difference between central planning and free markets is not the dichotomy between intelligent design and chance, but between design and planning by a small group or a large group. The genius of the free market is not that it is unplanned, but as Hayek wrote, it is planned by millions of people, all contributing specialized knowledge that no central planner could possess, even if he is President Obama.

Ridley: “The social Darwinists of the 19th century and the eugenicists of the 20th were of the view that the strong should therefore be encouraged to succeed, the better to keep natural selection going. But this is to misread human society. The human body may have come about through three billion years of natural selection among genes, but civilisation and prosperity came from 50,000 years of much more rapid natural selection among ideas.”

Actually, prosperity came about with the advent of capitalism in the 16th century. Several works on economic history demonstrate that standards of living changed very little from the days of the pharaohs until the 17th century; some would say the 18th century. The evolution of ideas had nothing to do with it. Capitalism exploded onto the scene in Western Europe with almost no ancestry.

As for eugenicists desiring to keep natural selection going, Ridley’s comment that they “misread human society” is wrong. Eugenicists and 19th century Darwinists thought they had discovered a higher “morality” than the old Christian one that would keep alive those harmful to future generations. It was a natural and logical conclusion to the assumptions of Darwinism. People rebelled against it because of their lingering Christian morality, not because it wasn’t logical or scientific, as Ben Stein demonstrated in his film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”.

Ridley: “Even sophisticated, entropy-defying complex systems are subject to the weather-like vagaries of mathematical chaos — and there Darwin cannot help.”

Ridley assumes that economies are as random as the weather. Of course, the weather isn’t random; we just don’t understand the physics and so can’t predict how weather will develop. Weather is controlled by physical laws beyond our control and if we knew them well enough we could predict weather as accurately as we predict the movements of the planets.

On the other hand, economies are not controlled by physical laws we know little about. Economies are man-made systems of organization controlled by people. We know people because people are us. We know how people think and react to a wide variety of phenomena. Mainstream econ can’t predict the humidity in a downpour, but that doesn’t mean economics is too complex a subject for anyone to understand. Mainstream econ can’t predict because it assumes economies are forces of nature. In Dr. Kling’s words, they assume it’s a matter of hydraulics. But if we take the approach that Austrian econ takes, and which Behavioral Econ takes, then the economy makes a lot of sense and becomes predicable. Then financial disaster become completely avoidable.

I would quibble with his caricature of Adam Smith.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments is Darwinian only if read with the previous suggestion and the greatest credulity, and Smith saw a vital role for regulators in Wealth of Nations as he expressed certainty of the tendency for businessmen to collude and for unconstrained free markets to run amok. He railed against foolishness, but I don’t recall him railing against sapience. Thus, in so far as we accept Ridley’s view of Smith, we must frame his words in terms of scale and scope, not collaboration or direction. The similarity between the two authors might be more along the lines of their appreciation for a force that they could not create in and of themselves and sincere wonder at the goodness of its power; a contagious sense of awe, humility, peace, and gratitude.

One needn’t be a hypocrite to acknowledge that things can take a “natural” course if left alone and yet that we might very well prefer something “unnatural”. Unless we are to claim that the “unnatural” preference is somehow fit for remediation while everything else should be left alone, then we haven’t a leg to stand on in criticizing those who choose to adopt one basic set of principles for physical sciences and augment them with another for social sciences; the reason for this augmentation being the existence of sapience and with it moral agency. These are not physical forces. They are metaphysical forces. If we embrace a pursuit to eradicate societal instinct, are we not central planners of a different sort?

If evolution/natural selection is responsible for everything we experience, then choice matters not. Smith’s admonitions should fall on deaf ears and not affect behavior one bit. Natural, physical, inhuman forces must then be to answer for war, theft, malice, plague, famine, and drought. They also deserve credit for everything we would claim as our own such as wealth, art, technology, and the affection we express toward those we claim to love. How juvenile of us to think that we have any choice in the matter of loving another individual, right? I prefer to think that I am not loving another person unless I choose to do so; that it requires my assent and I am a fool to withhold it. Then, I hope that I would give it as often as humanly possible, and that when I fail to give it they would be loved by someone else _in spite of me_. That’s how I can support societal approaches to economic policy that give consideration to others in excess of recognizing them as competitors for limited resources. That’s how I can express reverence for the physical and the metaphysical in tandem without contradiction. I’ve studied Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments, and I don’t think Smith would have a problem with this. Characterizing his work as physical reductionism is taking substantial interpretive and editorial liberty.

As a reducto ad absurdum, the cute animals thing eventually leads to a “animals evolved in such a way that humans would want to breed them,” and then individual dog breeds become a result of natural selection, in a way.

Arnold,

This brings up a great “contradiction” in American Political Society. There is no true party who believes in freedom: Democrats are considered anti-market pro personal freedom.

Yet Republicans are pro Free Markets (in a comparative sense since both parties in the hold of big business) but then anti-personal freedoms (Gay Marriage?) (Except gun ownership).

People like me, who live in a major metropolitan city are forced to make trade offs between parties; Give up some economic (free market) freedom, or give up some personal freedom.

Why do so many libertarians allow their good ideas about freedom and liberty to be hijacked by republican and conservatives? Why do many seem willing to trade off the personal freedom part? What am I missing? Are there no true Libertarians? Just rich people who want to make sure the world does not change, so they grab the libertarian moniker and parade around for economic justice and small government, all the while trying to prevent people from living their lives to the fullest, and imposing untold death and destruction in overseas wars?

What Gives?

[Accidental typing of Arnold’s name where the commenter’s was supposed to be has been fixed.–Econlib Ed.]

I don’t think it’s ridiculous to theorize that domesticated animals have developed human-baby-like features to hijack our brain architecture that was designed to care for human babies. I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, but why is it a Reductio ad Absurdum?

Also, I see Ridley’s point with respect to evangelical Christians and whatnot, but his theory only holds if you characterize Conservatism in terms of the backwater redneck bible-thumping adherents, who are not true Scotsmen – sorry, Conservatives – but rather vote banks who serve the same purpose as the ACORN-mobilized ghettoes do for the Progressive movement.

When you look at the intellectual cores of Conservatism and Liberalism, I think you’ll see that it is the Conservatives who have believed in the imperfectability of man, the necessity of rules and coercion to restrain our animalistic natures, and other consequences of humans being selfish replication machines at our core.

And let’s not forget where the battle lines are drawn in the nature-nurture debate. it wasn’t the Campus Young Republicans protesting EO Wilson in the 70’s.

Finally, only on the fringiest of the right-wing fringe do we see anyone willing to admit that evolution didn’t grind to a halt 40,000 years ago.

***

@Arnold

Short answer as to why Libertarianism has been spectacularly unsuccessful over the past century: There’s no money in it.

Cheers,

Zdeno

I don’t see any contradiction at all. If we look at evolution, it can quite happily create a species that evolves into a dead end and goes extinct while each step of its evolution is the “optimal for this species”.

Evolution doesn’t promise “success” (no matter what you choose to call success). It’s a process that produces wonderful and occasionally dreadful (to those involved) outcomes.

A completely free market is much the same. A free market might easily dictate the death of millions, if certain economic circumstances occur even while it produces miracles elsewhere.

To my mind, evolution and the markets are there to be harnessed. They produce wonderful things, but they are not goals, only processes.

I think the analogy only holds if the left-wingers don’t believe that the market is a process. And in that, there may be some truth. A surprisingly large number of people don’t seem to acknowledge the existence of how markets work. And in that, they lose a powerful tool for use in the betterment of mankind.

I like PJ O’Rourke’s take on Smith’s “invisible hand.” O’Rourke says Smith meant nothing more than that unintended consequences follow every action. The state may intend good things, but bad usually follows. In a free market, a producer may intend to cheat people, but competition thwarts him and punishes him instead. Smith may have used the phrase very few times, but he used the concept it embodies frequently.

In addition to the reasons mentioned above for why evolution is a bad analogy for free markets, I don’t think it’s a good idea to equate free markets with evolution because it’s bad PR. Evolution equals mass death. Species change as a result of mass death. Evolution is brutal, uncaring, and blind. Markets are the exact opposite. Competition in markets isn’t the life and death struggle of the natural world. It’s friendly competition, like sporting events. And the division of labor and trade make cooperation far more a hallmark of markets than brutal competition.

Comparing free markets to evolution is no way to win socialists over.

“Why do so many libertarians allow their good ideas about freedom and liberty to be hijacked by republican and conservatives?”

Joe,

I don’t know how anyone can stop someone else from “hijacking” ideas. Ideas belong to everyone. To be sure, it’s frustrating when someone like George W. Bush claims to be a defender of free markets or Cato publishes articles supporting statist, Republican policies using the “lesser of two evils” excuse. All I can do is try to be consistent in applying libertarian principles in my own life and in my interactions with others. You know, talk the talk and walk the walk.

It’s difficult in the current environment of rabid partisanship to be heard sometimes, but all we can do is keep trying. My approach is to calmly and respectfully engage others and hope that, at the very least, I can demonstrate that not all libertarians are either closet-Republicans or people who just want drugs and prostitution legalized.

Since the vast majority of US citizens of all political views accept the theory of evolution

Don’t we wish.

November 2004 Gallup poll

God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years: 44%

Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man’s creation: 38%

Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process: 13%

Darwinian atheist is to anarcho capitalist as Creationist is to interventionist (and Deist is to Hayekian libertarian)