Abstract
As a general introduction, this chapter describes the perspective of evolutionary political economy. Understanding reproduction at three levels—the biological, the social or cultural, and the economic—the author introduces an evolutionary perspective into political economy in a broader sense. After criticizing the deterministic traits of the so-called materialistic view of history, he raises the problem of how “governance” can fit the view of evolutionary social science.
The human being is in the most literal sense a zoon politikon (ζωον πολιτιχον), not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.
(Karl Marx written in 1857) (English translation by Martin Nicolaus, Marx 1973, p.84; in original German, Marx 1953, S. 6)
Kiichiro Yagi, Shakai Keizaigaku: Shihon-shugi wo siru (Political Economy: Knowing Capitalism), 2006. University of Nagoya Press (Partly used in Sects. 1.1 and 1.2).
Kiichiro Yagi, “Shakai Keizai System no Hendo Zushiki to Governance (Evolution and Governance of Socio-Economic System),” in Shakai Keizai System (Social and Economic Systems Studies), no. 23 (October 2002) pp. 11–21. The Japan Association for Social and Economic Systems Study (Partly used in Sects. 1.3 and 1.4).
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Notes
- 1.
We admit that political leaders of the revolutionary states as well as religious leaders of Muslim nations may think differently in this respect. However, the secular orders in their countries, too, cannot do away with this central dogma. Their leadership is based on the delicate balance of the former and their political or religious credo.
- 2.
From Quizlet Chapter 6: Population Biology (https://quizlet.com) accessed on May 6, 2019. The significance of the “population thinking” in the theory of evolution is stressed by the biologist Ernst Mayr (1988).
- 3.
The range of the application of this dogma varies from the dominant view of relevant age and society. It was not too long ago that independent decision-making by women was not permitted.
- 4.
The representative criticism against mainstream economics is surmised in Hodgson (1988), a title I translated into Japanese with my friends in 1993.
- 5.
See Kuczynski and Meek (1972).
- 6.
- 7.
To avoid misunderstanding, I must add that the criterion of value inherent in the reproduction system follows the structure/relations of reproduction, and not the contrary. Most Marxists adhere to labor theory of value and maintain that “exploitation” of workers by capitalists can be grasped only by this theory. Such is an ideological interpretation of value that has retarded the progress of their theory so far. As value is the reflex as well as the criterion for economic reproduction, it develops in accordance to the structure of reproduction. Further, the real situation of workers should be judged not exclusively by “exploitation rate” but by their well-being and quality of working life including industrial relations, which Marx called “production relations.”
- 8.
The newest achievement in this direction is Yoshinori Shiozawa’s reconstruction of international value in the classical Ricardian perspective, not that of J.S. Mill (Shiozawa et al. 2017). Together with the process view of stability in the reproduction (Shiozawa et al. 2019), evolutionary direction in economics has acquired solid ground for the further development.
- 9.
Morishima (1973) called it the Marx-von Neumann path.
- 10.
Commons characterizes this concept as follows: “The concept of Futurity is that of expected events, but the principle of Futurity is the similarity of repetition, with variability, of transactions and their valuations, performed in the moving Present with reference to future events as expected hindrance, aids, or consequences” (Commons 1934, p. 738).
- 11.
See Chap. 6. Probably the present reactionary tendencies in several central European nations are reactions coming from the demise of the goal euphoria. Now nationalist leaders in these nations begin to distinguish their nations from those beyond the EU border.
- 12.
Sociologists generally use the term “micro–macro link.” See Alexander et al. (1987). Under the similar term “micro–macro loop,” Shiozawa (2000) elaborated more substantial causal interrelations such as that of the structure of Japanese firms and the macroeconomic growth pattern that emerged under the rapid growth era of Japanese economy.
- 13.
Dopfer and Potts (2008) call it “bimodal” and explain it as the “ontological property of all existences, in that they are always composed of an idea and an actualization” (p. 100). In Japan, Tamito Yoshida’s concept of “program science” has similar dualistic view. According to Yoshida, all the sciences including social sciences and humanities the complexity of whose research agenda is higher than that of biology are covered by this concept of “program science.” He considered this proposal as a manifesto of the informatic turn of science after the advent of genome science. See Hasegawa (2010).
- 14.
This workshop was frequently held in Kyoto from 1998 to 2012 by Kyoto Forum and Shorai Sedai Sogo Kenkyusho (Research Institute for the Future Generation) whose director was Prof. Kim Taechang. It promoted the interest in public philosophy also by publication of the total 30-volume Series of Kokyo Tetsugaku (Public Philosophy) from the University of Tokyo Press from 2001 to 2006. I attended this workshop several times.
- 15.
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Yagi, K. (2020). From Reproduction to Evolutionary Governance. In: Yagi, K. (eds) From Reproduction to Evolutionary Governance. Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science, vol 20. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54998-7_1
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