[PEN-L:524] Biological metaphors in economiscs (Was: sociobiology and right-wing politics)

[Anders Ekeland <anders.ekeland@xxxxxxxxx>]

I second Ellen Dannin having recently read George Hodgson's "Evolution and
Economics" which is all about the development of modern biology/Darwinism
and the use of biological methaphors in economics. Hodgson spells out Ellen
Ds point in great detail.

But Hodgson is actually analysing the devolopment of modern biology to free
it from its racist and righ-wing connotations in order to use biological
metaphors to build a non-neo classical paradigm for economics more suited
for a more realistic description of capitalism.

I think Hodgson succeds in freeing the biological metaphors from right-wing
misuse, but I got more convinced that they are not suited for radical
economics beeing to Darwinian and not suited for capturing crative learning
processes, i.e. to little "Lamarckian".

Hodgsons book is centrered around a discussion of famous economists, among
them Marshall, Spencer, Veblen, Schumpeter and Marx. I found his chapter on
Marx surprisingly weak, bordering on an out-right misunderstanding of Marx
vision of communism, making it a static paradise. I do not read Marx that
way.

Has this book been discussed on PEN-L previously?

Have there been reviews of Hodgsons book in left-wing journals?

Anders Ekeland
STEP group (a research group in technology and economic policy)
Noreay

At 12:30 PM 8/3/98 -0700, Ellen Dannin wrote:
>An important nuance in Darwinism that seems to get left out of discussions
>of "competition of the fittest" is the importance of filling different
>environmental niches. Folks often talk about this subject as if all
>creatures all over are in a free for all competing against one another.
>Obviously that's not the case, and whichever succeeds depends on which niche
>is involved. In a competition to populate the oceans, humans aren't likely
>to do well against, say, plankton. Which is fitter sidesteps the question,
>fitter for what. It would be an odd world if one critter and one only
>emerged as the fittest.

[snip]
>
>Ellen J. Dannin
>California Western School of Law
>225 Cedar Street
>San Diego, CA  92116
>(619) 525-1449
>FAX: (619) 696-9999
>
>