2.4 Adam Smith, Marx, Darwin
Last modified 07/05/2008
|
The confusion over evolution and economics is endemic in Darwinian theory.
Let us note that Adam Smith, as an economist, expresses fairly well the rituals
of economic action, with an injunction to consider the possibilities of a
capitalist variety as a free choice of economic systems. His statements that
exploiting selfishness is more efficient has always haunted his succession, and
while it is clear from observation that market systems have a dynamism of their
own, this type of economic novelty has quite obviously produced its own
dissenters, such as Marx, who depicted the alienation that arises in such
systems, and the class basis, and exploitation that 'theory' is supposed to
justify. Whatever the case, there are no solid grounds for generalizing from
capitalist systems to general evolution, and a consideration of the eonic
effect, or eonic evolution, shows us just how misleading that can be. In any
case, Marx is right that we can freely chose another system, or some can freely
revolt or replace a given economic system. Controversial indeed, but the logical
point is obvious that we are not dealing with laws of economics, but of 'system
action, and free action', a set of options by economic agents about which system
they will create as the initial conditions for an economy. This voids the basis
for claiming that 'economic laws' are givens of nature.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||