Friday, July 5, 2019

Many of us today are inclined toward socialism (explicit cooperation) & against laissez-faire capitalism (implicit cooperation) because the first was much more genetically beneficial during previous generations of our species

Evolutionary psychology, economic freedom, trade and benevolence. John Levendis, Robert B. Eckhardt and Walter Block. Review of Economic Perspectives, Volume 19: Issue 2, Jun 26 2019. https://doi.org/10.2478/revecp-2019-0005

Abstract: Our thesis is that the reason many of us today are inclined toward socialism (explicit cooperation) and against laissez-faire capitalism (implicit cooperation) is because the first type of behavior was much more genetically beneficial during previous generations of our species. There is, however, a seemingly strong argument against this hypothesis: evidence from human prehistory indicates that trade (implicit cooperation) previously was widespread. How, then, can we be hard-wired in favor of socialism and against capitalism if our ancestors were engaged in market behavior in past millennia? Although trade which is self-centered and beneficial (presumably mutually beneficial to all parties in the exchange) did indeed appear hundreds of thousands of years ago, benevolence was established in our hard-wiring very substantially earlier, literally hundreds of millions of years ago, and is therefore far more deeply integrated into the hu-man psyche.

Keywords: Benevolence, capitalism, evolutionary psychology, hard-wiring, profit and loss, selfishness
JEL Classification: Z1, Z10, Z14

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