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“Generalized Darwinism” and the quest for an evolutionary theory of policy-making

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Abstract

According to the “Generalized Darwinism” movement (GD), the three principles of variation, selection and retention/replication (labeled “Darwinian” in some variants of GD) can and should be used as a meta-theoretical framework for the explanation of evolutionary processes in the sociocultural domain. Despite their biological origins, the various variants of GD aim at redefining these principles in a way that is supposed to abstract from any domain-specific particulars. We argue that in order to qualify as an adequate meta-theoretical framework for evolutionary economics, GD should not only inspire and guide positive theory development in evolutionary economics, but also be able to support viable practical policy implications. Examining its potential to do so, however, leads us to the conclusion that in its specific deductive variant proposed by Hodgson & Knudsen (HKGD), it risks systematically misguiding evolutionary policy advice. Competing variants, such as the one proposed by Pelikan, fare better in this regard.

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Notes

  1. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer, as well as Guido Bünstorf, Christian Cordes, Jan-Willem Stoelhorst, Paul Jakob, Ulrich Witt and seminar participants at the 2008 annual meeting of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) in Rome for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All remaining errors and omissions are, of course, mine alone.

  2. See also Hodgson (2010), Hodgson and Knudsen (2008b), Metcalfe (1998), Vanberg (2006), Stoelhorst (2008a, b), and in particular Hodgson and Knudsen (2010a).

  3. “Hodgson & Knudsen’s Generalized Darwinism”, in order to mark the difference to a competing variant (viz., Pavel Pelikan’s) that will be discussed below. As Hodgson and several coauthors explain (Aldrich et al. 2008, FN 3), the originally favored notion of “Universal Darwinism” (apparently first coined, in a strictly biological context, by Dawkins 1983) has now been abandoned since it “may misleadingly suggest that Darwinism covers everything.” Rather, Darwinian principles are now taken to “apply to complex population systems only” (ibid.).

  4. For the sake of simplicity, the predicates “socio-cultural”, “cultural”, “socioeconomic”, and will be used interchangeably in the following.

  5. The underlying general motivation remains the same, however. Following Nelson and Winter (1982: 11), Hodgson and Knudsen (2007: 358) state to be “prepared to exploit any appropriate idea from biology that helps us to explain socio-economic reality”.

  6. See also Rosenberg (2000). The debate is, however, plagued by many mutual misunderstandings, perhaps best illustrated by the exchange between Cordes (2007b) and Hodgson (2007).

  7. It is specifically the orientation of Veblen and (the late, “evolutionary”) Hayek that is hotly contested (Cordes 2007a; Marciano 2009; Hodgson 2005), while Schumpeter’s aversion against the use of Darwinian notions in economics is widely acknowledged (Hodgson 1997; Andersen 2009: 382). Hodgson (2005) presents some intellectual predecessors of contemporary Generalized Darwinism.

  8. Pelikan (2011: 361–363) offers two practical policy implications from his specific variant of GD, but does not discuss the potential of GD approaches in general to develop such implications.

  9. As the application of Darwinian concepts to the economic domain has now started to permeate even popular narratives of the recent financial crisis and of the evolution of financial markets more general (e.g. Ferguson 2008, stating that “[f]inancial history is essentially the result of institutional mutation and natural selection” [ibid.: 342, 350]), it seems more important than ever to check whether and how Darwinian concepts distort the development of policy advice.

  10. On the first pillar see, e.g., Ebner (2006), Wohlgemuth (2002). On the second pillar, see, e.g. Kerstenetzky (2000, 2007), Dolfsma (2005), and Witt (2003a).

  11. See also Nelson and Winter (1982: ch. 15), Dopfer (1976: 19–29), Witt (1996a), Hodgson (1999: ch. 11), Schubert (2012).

  12. We also do not argue that the use of biologically inspired concepts necessarily implies a “Panglossian” outlook on the economy. There is no mechanism in biological evolution guaranteeing that only “optimal” results will prevail (Whitman 1998: 49–55).

  13. See in particular Hodgson and Knudsen (2006a, 2008b), Aldrich et al. (2008), Hodgson (2002).

  14. Hodgson (2002: 260, 268–269). See Vromen (1995: ch. 5) for a subtle methodological critique of the inadequate functionalism involved in “just-so stories”.

  15. As we will see below, the variant of GD suggested by Pelikan (2011) differs from HKGD in several ways: For instance, it disagrees with HKGD about what exactly the “Darwinian” principles are: specifically, it skips “replication” in favor of the much more general notion “retention”; it also does not claim that GD is the “only” way to understand economic change (ibid.: 344). Pelikan (2012) clarifies the differences between his variant of GD and Hodgson & Knudsen’s. See also Sections 3.3 and 4.6, below, for further discussion.

  16. The facts that (a) Darwin, when establishing his principles, was influenced by social philosophers such as Malthus, and that (b) Darwin himself speculated about the evolutionary forces transforming morals and language are cited in support of this hypothesis; see, e.g., Hodgson (2007: 265). Ironically, fact (a) is also put forward by opponents of GD in support of their position (see below).

  17. See also Hodgson (2010: 10).

  18. Italicized in the original.

  19. Strictly speaking, these are not “Darwin’s” principles. Darwin’s own account of evolution actually consists of five theories (Mayr 2001), viz., a theory that organisms are transformed over time, the theory of common descent, plus the (originally more disputed) theories of multiplication of species, gradualism and natural selection proper. See Levit et al. (2011) for further details. The reduction of Darwin’s theories to the three “core principles” of variation, selection and retention/inheritance (“mechanisms for preserving and/or propagating the selected variations”) is due to Campbell, cf. e.g. Campbell (1965).

  20. See, e.g., Aldrich et al. (2008) and Hodgson (2002: 270–276). According to Hodgson, Darwinism is committed to “determinism” in one of three possible senses, viz., the ontological assumption that “every event has a cause” (ibid.).

  21. On this, see the detailed argument by Stoelhorst (2008a).

  22. This is inspired by Price (1995).

  23. See Hodgson and Knudsen (2006a: 11).

  24. See in particular Knudsen (2004).

  25. See, however, Hodgson and Knudsen (2006b) on the pitfalls of a Lamarckian perspective on cultural evolution.

  26. It does not appear to be necessary to engage in Darwinian exegesis at this point, since the question may well be left open whether Darwin himself was a “Darwinist” in the sense of HKGD, or whether it makes sense to restrict the meaning of “Darwinism” to the state of the art of evolutionary theory before Darwin’s death. After all, the conceptual and theoretical body known as Darwinism achieved its logical coherence only decades after Darwin had died in 1882. See FN 19, above.

  27. To the contrary, Pelikan (2012) sees Darwinism as a special case of Lamarckism, since the latter allows for a diverse set of feedback (learning) channels, while in Darwinism (as typically understood), this capacity for “learning from experience” is zero.

  28. See also, e.g., Hodgson and Knudsen (2008a: 49): “Nothing in social culture remotely corresponds to the DNA code”.

  29. See also Hodgson (2007: 270), Aldrich et al. (2008: 580) and Stoelhorst (2008a: 354).

  30. See also Hodgson and Knudsen (2006a: 16).

  31. See Hodgson and Knudsen (2006a: 16) and Hodgson (2010: 13): “[Generalized Darwinism] can ... have an important impact on the development of middle-range theory and serve as a useful guide for empirical enquiry.”

  32. See Hodgson and Knudsen (2010b: 15) for three features that characterize a replicator, namely, “causal implication”, “similarity” and “information transfer”. Earlier, Dawkins (1976) had described replicators as being characterized by their “longevity, fecundity and copying-fidelity”; cf. also Hull (1989: 95–98) and Hodgson and Knudsen (2008a) for a detailed discussion of the term’s semantic history. Importantly, there are simple processes of adaptive change (viz., subset selection) that do not involve replication of any kind. As a consequence, they a fortiori do not have the potential to increase complexity (Hodgson and Knudsen 2012b).

  33. Italics in the original.

  34. The analysis gets more complicated, though, when it is acknowledged that what may emerge as an interactor at one level of phenomena might act as a replicator at another level: “Human individuals can be seen as interactors (with their genotypes as replicators), but individual preferences or ideas can be regarded as replicators at a higher level of cultural transmission” (Hodgson and Knudsen 2008a: 49).

  35. On the criteria qualifying statements as “metaphysical”, cf. Popper (1989: ch. 11).

  36. This fundamental insight seems to be neglected by Geisendorf (2009) who, in an attempt to defend GD against some of its critics, downplays the importance of concrete “vocabulary” such as “selection” (ibid.: 380, 386).

  37. See, e.g., Hodgson (2010: 12–13) and Witt (2008b).

  38. See Vromen (2008) on the differences and the basic independence between these ontological precepts.

  39. See Witt (1996b: 709). This is based on the methodological meta-project of “Consilience”, suggested by Wilson (1998), where he defines the related quest for a “unity of knowledge” as implying the “’jumping together’ of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation.”

  40. As Hodgson (2007: 269) aptly defines these terms, analogy refers to taking “one phenomenon or process ... as the reference point and other similar processes are compared to it,” while generalization “starts from an array of different phenomena and processes, without giving analytical priority to any of them over others. Where possible, shared principles are adduced ... These common principles will not reflect detailed mechanisms found in any one particular domain.” See also Aldrich et al. (2008: 579–580).

  41. Note that analogies from economics played a key role in the early days of Darwinism: Browne (2006: 43, 44, 56, 67), for instance, stresses the influence of Malthus, industrial analogies and the specifically Victorian entrepreneurial spirit on Darwin’s thought. As Marx put it in a letter to Engels, “[i]t is remarkable how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society, with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, ‘inventions’, and the Malthusian struggle for existence” (cited in Guha 1994, endnote 1). See also Ghiselin (1995) and Marciano (2009).

  42. There are two different meanings of “blind”: Following evolutionary epistemologists (such as Campbell 1987), Vanberg (2006: 202) argues that human behavior is “blind” in the sense that in an evolving economy, humans cannot predict with certainty whether their “conjectural trials” will finally be successful. This is uncontroversial. The lack of predictability concerns, however, the level of aggregate results of individual actions (the “social order” resulting from one or many interpersonal interactions), not the level of the grounds of individual action itself (which, even when it follows rules, is never “blind” in the sense of “being perfectly pre-programmed”).

  43. Consider Buenstorf (2006), showing that the selection concept suggested by HKGD systematically biases the perception of theoretical problems by downplaying the role of essential economic factors, such as the market exchange process between producers and consumers. It is not hard to see the potential distortionary impact of such a bias on normative reasoning (see Section 4, below).

  44. Cf. Hodgson and Knudsen (2008a: 60).

  45. See (ibid.: 63).

  46. See (ibid.: 64).

  47. See also Pelikan (1995: 182): “We should not try to find at any price an exact social analogue to biological replicating... New institutional rules can often be tried within an existing system, while some systems—such as national economies—can hardly die and can never start from zero again.”

  48. Apart from eschewing the terms “replication” and “replicator”, Pelikan also denies the usefulness of the term “interactor”, preferring “agent” instead (Pelikan 2012). See Hodgson and Knudsen (2012a) for a reply to Pelikan’s criticism.

  49. Recursive application is possible: B-Agents at one level can also play the part of C-agents at another level (and vice versa, see ibid.: 352)

  50. This term is used in a broad sense, including not only specific prescriptions, but also general negative “institutional rules” (ibid.: 346). In general, instructions can operate at the genetic, “cultural”, “organizational” or “national” level (ibid.: 357). All uses of instructions require pre-existing instructions, which implies that for each agent, the developmental potential of its actual instructions is ultimately constrained by its initial (genetically hard-wired) instructions. The possibilities of evolution in general are also limited by this set of initial instructions (ibid.: 349-350).

  51. As Pelikan (2011) points out, his version of GD shares with CH the view that socioeconomic evolution is a continuation of the biological one (a position shared also by HKGD) and “that it is indeed not Darwinian in the sense of HKGD” (Pelikan 2011: 342).

  52. This is of course inspired by Schumpeter’s approach to Evolutionary Economics.

  53. The way genetically programmed basic wants, dispositions and mechanisms of non-cognitive learning continue to shape economic behavior has been explored in several studies that apply the CH framework without, of course, resorting to any notion of variation, selection, or replication (see Witt 2001, 2004; Buenstorf 2006; Cordes et al. 2008; Wörsdorfer 2009). These theories examine, e.g., the question how individuals acquire new idiosyncratic wants on the basis of (universally shared) basic needs, why new goods and services are continuously consumed although basic wants are mostly satiable, or to understand historical changes in patterns of production or firm organization.

  54. See also Witt and Cordes (2007: 321).

  55. This is self-evident as regards instrumental policy statements, where some goal is externally given, and the economist-advisor looks for the most appropriate policy tools to achieve that goal. It also, however, applies to genuinely normative theorizing in the sense of Keynes (1917), where the plausibility of alternative policy goals or criteria itself is analyzed. Statements of this latter kind depend on facts in an indirect way. For instance, if we assume the economy to be a closed stationary system, the criterion of Pareto optimality looks much more attractive than in the case of an open, dynamic system.

  56. This does obviously not imply any call for endorsing, as a matter of normative metric, the specific kind of individualism that assumes, à la Bentham, that the individual is (always or typically) the best judge of her own well-being. This position is rightly rejected by Hodgson (1999: 244–245). In what follows, the term “individualist” is used in the sense that it denotes policy advice that is based on a welfare criterion which in turn connects at least partly to the well-being of individual agents who may very well be non-atomist (by virtue of interacting strategically, say).

  57. As Hodgson (2004b) demonstrates, historically, the semantics of the much-abused term “Social Darwinism” have been too volatile for it to be useful. The most contradictory implications have been “derived” from Darwinism over the decades, typically just reflecting the norms and prejudices of the times (see also Ruse 2006: 204–207). On Darwin’s own stance towards social Darwinism see Ruse (1999: 264–265).

  58. A normative perspective broadly in line with individualism is perfectly compatible with an evolutionary world-view, as demonstrated, e.g., by Kitcher (2012): “[ethical] changes come about ... through the discovery of natural facts, about people, their capacities, sufferings, and aspirations, on the basis of which there are new possibilities for mutual engagement.” Assuming that “mutual engagement” here is meant to include “mutual advantage” we have a case for the biological underpinning of individualist morality, linked to the propensity to cooperate.

  59. On Darwin’s personal commitment to, and scientific concept of progress see Ruse (2009).

  60. Ghiselin (1995) suggests interpreting “fitness” as the increase in “useful technological innovation”, without however daring to explicitly equate “useful” with “good” in any sense (ibid.: 1036).

  61. To illustrate the first part of the statement, modern happiness research shows that the tendency to accumulate consumer goods with strong extrinsic attributes, while certainly explainable by an urge to increase and display “fitness”, at the same time decreases subjective well-being, a much more important goal in life (Ng 2006).

  62. See Sugden (1993) and the references given by Vanberg (1994b: 465–466).

  63. See also (ibid.: 133): “[A]s with every organism, the main ‘purpose’ to which man’s physical make-up as well as his traditions are adapted is to produce other human beings ... There is no real point in asking whether those of his actions which do so contribute are really ‘good’, particularly if thus it is intended to inquire whether we like the results.” (italics in the original). On this tension in Hayek’s normative argument, see also Vanberg (1994a: 183) and Gray (1998).

  64. The definition that they give in FN 4 (ibid.: 4) is slightly more specific. There, they characterize evolvability as “the rate at which a characteristic will respond to selection pressure”. The following section is partly based on Schubert (2013b).

  65. See Pelikan (1995: 188–189) and Pelikan (2003: 29–30).

  66. His approach is problematic for other reasons. For instance, important concepts in normative economic reasoning, such as “exchange” or “mutual advantage”, are neglected altogether.

  67. Hodgson himself has ventured into this direction, in the context of developing business policy advice, referring to Hodgson and Knudsen (2010b). See University of Hertfordshire (2010).

  68. We are agnostic as to ideological implications of a “Darwinian” viewpoint, except as to the rejection of an utterly non-individualistic perspective on welfare. See Section 4.1, above.

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    Christian Schubert

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Schubert, C. “Generalized Darwinism” and the quest for an evolutionary theory of policy-making. J Evol Econ 24, 479–513 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-013-0304-x

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