Towards an intellectual history of evolutionary economics: competition and struggle versus cooperation and mutual aid

John Hall,Svetlana Kirdina-Chandler

doi:10.1590/0101-31572017v37n03a05

Abstract

ABSTRACT Our inquiry considers the origins of Evolutionary Economics by reintroducing a debate that took place in Russia in the 19th and early 20th century. Responses to Charles Darwin’s The origin of Species are considered, especially critiques stressing Darwin’s emphasis upon competition and struggle in natural selection, that can be traced directly to Thomas Robert Malthus. Considering challenging contributions made by several Russian scholars, we place special emphasis upon Peter Kropotkin’s focus on cooperation and “mutual aid” in natural selection and evolution. We then speculate upon the commonality found in the evolutionary views advanced by Kropotkin and his American contemporary, Thorstein Veblen.

Highlights

Our inquiry considers the origins of Evolutionary Economics by reintroducing a debate that took place in Russia in the 19th and early 20th century
Debates may prove fruitful for Economic Science, as various points of view can be advanced that shed light on subjects of inquiry and concern
Does competition and struggle serve as the main variables initiating and driving natural selection and evolution? Or is cooperation and mutual aid the driver? While these registered as burning questions to Russian scientists many decades back, we think these questions remain fundamental for those interested in understanding the intellectual origins of this field of inquiry we know as Evolutionary Economics

Summary

Kropotkin on Mutual Aid

Of contributors to what we are introducing as a major Russian debate taking place many decades back, we can note that Peter Kropotkin displayed an unwavering and deep-seated respect for Darwin’s thinking. Kropotkin accepted that the struggle for existence played an important role in the evolution of species, and he extended his thinking even further, arguing that life is a struggle; and in this struggle the fittest survive In his foundational book, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution [1902] (2006), Kropotkin criticized Darwin’s emphasizing competition and the struggle for existence as valid and universal laws. In their place he introduced the “Law of Mutual Aid,” and carried its logic far beyond the plant and animal kingdoms to consider human relations and the foundations for the emergence of moral instincts and even ethical behaviour.. It remains important to note that Kropotkin (2006, p. 247) carried his ideas to the limit, singling out the importance of mutual aid and stressing this as the variable that would lead our societies to a “loftier evolution.”

Peter Kropotkin and Thorstein Veblen

Final Considerations