By Larry Marsh, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist 2009
Is life fundamentally bottom-up and randomly designed or top-down and intentionally designed? Are you a socialist-creationist or a free-market evolutionist? If you reject this dichotomy and instead view yourself as a socialist-evolutionist, how can you justify arguing for the power of self-organization and unintentional, benevolent design in biology and against it in economics?
In 1776 Adam Smith argued in his Wealth of Nations that a wide variety of high quality products did not come about through the action of governments, but rather from the industriousness of individuals. Smith’s “invisible hand” did not work by the design of a benevolent creator but through the self-organizing nature of life itself.
In his recent book, The Mind of the Market, Michael Shermer points out that Smith’s bottom-up vision of the world was countered in 1802 by William Paley’s top-down revision in Natural Theology where he argued that the intricacies of an eye could only be the product of a benevolent creator just as the intricacies of a watch could only be the product of a fastidious watchmaker.
In response to Paley’s top-down story, Charles Darwin’s 1859 book, The Evolution of Species, explained life’s self-organizing capabilities in line with Adam Smith’s earlier bottom-up explanations. Life began with single-celled organisms and gradually evolved into more complex, intelligent beings. Individual ants with the right stuff self-organize their colonies for the greater good. The queen ant is not a commander ant. The colony just consists of individual ants instinctively following their nature.
The arguments of Adam Smith and Charles Darwin are linked more deeply than just their bottom-up commonality. They are bonded together by a belief in the unintended nature of benevolence in economics and evolution. Smith argued “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
Likewise, Darwin did not view “natural selection” as the result of benevolent intention, but rather as the result of random deviations in genetic code. Some deviations were beneficial and some were harmful. Those species that got the beneficial deviations prospered while those that got the harmful ones died out.
The Reverend Thomas Malthus did not share this benevolent view. His Iron Law of Population predicted population growth would outstrip growth in the world's ability to feed its expanding population. His view that humanity was doomed to forever live in poverty on the edge of starvation gave "the dismal science" its malevolent moniker.
Karl Marx also felt that the world left to its own devices would result in disaster. Without governmental guidance from above, capitalism would destroy itself and ultimately lead to a new world order of socialism where government would control and organize production just as God directly controls and organizes the creation of each new species.
Karl Marx and William Paley tell a consistent, socialist-creationist story of life controlled through top-down, intentional design. Their view contrasts sharply with the free-market evolutionist story of Adam Smith and Charles Darwin who see a world of self-organizing, bottom-up, unintentional benevolence.
If you reject this dichotomy and instead view yourself as a socialist-evolutionist, how can you justify arguing for the power of self-organization and unintentional, benevolent design in biology and against it in economics?
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Also see:
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Research needed to end economy's boom-bust cycle.
Enhance financial security, cut income tax with tax-deferred savings plan.
Financial crisis exposes deficiency in economic theory.
Without taxes, money would have no value.
Should California be allowed to create its own money?.
Trashing diet for cake and ice cream exposes flaw in economic theory.
Ostrom and Williamson win Nobel Prize in Economics.
Some Wall Street greed can never be satisfied.
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economics is a construct of humans?
I'm not sure that is a fact. Is economics an artificial construct, or a natural outgrowth of activity between (within?) species for limited resources? If economics is not something that is only related to humans, but is instead a natural state resulting from different entities interacting with respect to limited resources- and those entities have evolved- I would see a close connection between how those entities came to be and how they interact with respect to limited resources. Maybe humans have "evolved" a higher and more complex form of economic activity, but I don't think that in and of itself makes it different than a pack of animals hunting prey together. Economics, in the end, is a form of higher level cooperation, isn't it?
Philosophical independence is true liberty.
I would avoid conflating science with social concepts.
The “intentions” of economy policy do not parallel scientific explanations of our surroundings. Like the example given using ants, we humans assume the “intent” of the ant.
You ask: “how can you justify arguing for the power of self-organization and unintentional, benevolent design in biology and against it in economics?”
The answer is simple: Economics does not exist without humans, but science has taught us what happens in nature without the constructs of man. Economics is a construct of the philosophical human. The “self-organization and unintentional, benevolent design in biology” is not.
Humans ability to see that “the grass can be greener” is what drives one to be faithful in one economic policy over another. We are faithfull that we understand the complexities of economics but only as it relates to what one believes his or her economic plight is constructed of.
Science assumes knowledge is infinite.
Economics is the harmonizing of finite resources between humans.
Actually, Karl Marx believed
Actually, Karl Marx believed that capitalism would inevitably lead to a world-wide worker revolution (bottom up) not total government control (top down) like you insist. However, Marx knew that it would take top down organization to lead the world to a bottom up, commune society which relied on each person doing his part - this could not happen without some control at the top. Once this took place, however, the top would disappear and the workers would take over and organize (bottom up).
What would a malevolent design look like?
How can I justify arguing against the power of self-organization and unintentional, benevolent design in economics? According to the World Bank, 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 per day. Forgive me, Mr. Marsh, if I fail to regard that as proof of a benevolent aspect to our economic instincts.
fundamental basis for life
Larry-
I can also see a linkage between how life has evolved and how economies run themselves. Interesting idea that if you believe in one, you should logically believe in the other- but it should make sense: your worldview should hold consistently as long as you see life as one big and interconnected system.
Problem is many don't see a linkage. They don't understand economics at the fundamental level nor do they understand emergent behavior, complexity, systems thinking, etc. That would explain the faith many have that our government can rescue us from the "crisis" the economy is in right now. If it were only that simple it would seem to me that we'd have already developed successful economies in Africa and elsewhere through the IMF and World Bank (classic, top-down methodologies).
The book Emergence by Steven Johnson did it for me- among the more interesting portions of the book was the part about how ant colonies devise ingenious solutions as a collective, but through no guidance from above. "Designers" from above haven't, to my knowledge, had much long-term success in this world.
So, to me, it would follow that if you believe that life came from an evolutionary, bottom-up process- that you would also be inclined to believe that economies develop best when they are bottom-up empowered as opposed to top-down controlled. Likewise, if you believe in "a Creator" you should, to be consistent, believe in the benefits of a top-down, more socialist approach to economics.
If at the heart of all economics is human activity, then it would follow, I would think, that how humans came to be would be not only important, but fundamentally so.
Unfortunately, the political leanings of the extremes seem to demand 2 paradoxical worldviews: creationists who believe in capitalism and athiests who believe in socialism. Too bad politics doesn't make us consistently logical. Or maybe being moderate is the only way to go.
Termites vs Dry Wall
This is such rubbish. It is trying to compare two totally different and unrelated things.
Why do I think termites evolved and houses are created by design? Because one is an insect and the other is manufactured!
Whether one believes in evolution or creationism, the individual organism (ant, termite, person, etc) has no conscience role in what happens. Either God or random genetic mutations decide what will occur.
In economics, the individual does have a conscience role. The baker decides what products to make, how to sell them, etc. The government (representing individuals) decides other policies that affect the economy.
While the overall economic result may be unpredictable, individuals can consciencely affect the outcome. If everyone decides tech stocks are the next big thing, we get a "tech bubble". Home prices will continue to rise? Get the "housing bubble".
But termites cannot consciencely decide to eat steel and humans cannot consciencely decide to grow a third arm.
So I have no problem believing living things evolve in random ways but that economies are deliberately organized.