《自然的经济史》书评

经济理论解释自然进化 - 观点新颖但有牵强附会之嫌

This book concerns the intersection of economics and nature. But the translated title（自然经济史）is subject to an ambiguity that can lead to two interpretations: 1. Application of economic theories to evolution of nature. （用经济理论解释自然进化历史）2. Application of evolutionary theories to economic.（用自然进化论解释经济历史）The book mainly deals with the first contention. But confused by this title, I went on researching the second one prior to reading the book. You can now imagine my tilted and disbelieved face after finishing the first few pages. Nonetheless, in this review, I intend to provide summary on the second context as educational info. in addtion to review on this book. After all, the convergence of the two fields is an interesting topic.Part I - Book Review - Application of Economics to NatureThe author of this book used economic theories to explan the evolution of nature not the other way around. He stressed in early section that economic principles of supply and demand has a stake in the evolution of life. For instance, the relationship between lions and zabras can be seen as demand of predators and supply of preys. Both species' natural and physical attributes have thus been shaped by balance of demand and supply. If lion's population tends to be relatively small to zabra, then lion's physical and hunting abilities would be inferior, because each lion would have more supply requiring it to hunt less. The author then uses consumer and producer to characterise living creatures, among which producers are at the bottom of food chain and consumers are at the top. But such titling and categorizing have little essential value, because the distinction simply restated what we already know about the mechanism of natural food chain.Relating to the supply demand analysis is the cost-benefit ratio of predator and prey. The ratio is determined by prey's capability to just escape predators or predator's capability to just catch preys. That makes sense because a capability merely to escape or catch ensures no waste of precious energy and implies a smart strategy of energy allocation for both parties. But the author also attempts that human and nonhuman economics are essentially the same. He really goes too far on this, because for example human trades and exchanges are involuntary and intentional, whereas nonhuman creatures are amenable to exchanges because of natural selection. He also indicates a contention controversial to mainstream economists that the West civilization prospered due to her abundant natural resources. Personally, I think stock of natural resource is neither a sufficiency nor a necessity responsible for the wellbeing of western civilization. Japan serves as a convincing evidence to refute this contention. This book also addresses history of Western economy in later chapters as occasional bearing to biology and evolution. But it can be suspected that there are some unsupported thesis weakening its overarching positions in these chapters. Nonetheless, the author provides some keen observations to the linkage of nature and economics. He also makes some acute speculations, which seem lack supporting evidence and might be susceptible to logical fallacies. Lastly, since it is cross-discipline, I find it hard to read but enjoyable as one can spot some sparkling insights. Hope you guys enjoy them too.Part II - Application of Darwinism to EconomicsSocial science is an open system. Usefulness of evolution theory in parallel discipline is restricted by its very openness. Thorsten Veblen in 1898 took an initial view on the subject and stated that economics is not an evolutionary science but a path dependent science. But Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman both had partially validate evolutionary application in explaining complicated economic theories. Although from 1982, Nelson and Winter published the book that recognized this study and recieved great public attention, the evolution theory has not been successful in permeating economic community. The main reason is that biological concepts simply can not be parallely applied to economics. What are the concepts that can properly characterize a gene pool or selection mechanism in economic sense? A minor reason is combination of evolution and economics remind people of Social Darwinism and its notorious political fermentation. A few critics do believe that Darwinism can have wider application in fields other than biology, for instance technology, but its application in economics should be carefully scruntinized. Despite a few successful cases already exist, for example evolutionery explanation of game theory, such applications are narrowly limited to their underlying areas, and a new paradigm connecting majority of dots in economics and possessing the ability to overwhelm existing economic spectrum seems unlikely to appear, at least in the near future. The future of improved understanding of economic by evoluation probably lies in the area of knowledge. Knowledge like an organism can be shaped by various forces that are similar to natural forces. Our knowledge about weapson has been driven by power and military conflicts, which are then affected by polulation and political orientation. So at least there are something we can look forward to.By HartmannJG522012.10.01

必需的视角

生态历史的基本经济分析，推及生态圈普遍的经济法则，（竞争、合作、适应和不平等所规定的经济体系）以之解释人类社会面临的经济法则与问题。发现的问题与解决问题的思路似乎比很多经济学家靠谱得多。“我们一直服从自然在生命之初便已经设定的基本经济法则，尽管我们发展出了令人吃惊的新奇能力与制度。历史记录或经济法则表明即使在人类有能力统治生物圈之后，也无力改变内在的历史趋势。但考虑到人类拥有空前的预测、学习和调整能力，我们或许可以共同找到办法，以阻止从内部产生的足以毁灭我们和支持我们的生产机制的破坏。”“在经济体系中最为常见的普遍的一个现实是不平等，一方在资源的相互作用中比竞争者拿的更多，或失去的更少。支配者拥有不成比例的权力和财富，通过从上到下的控制，他们不仅影响了经济体中其他成员的特性和分配，还定义了整个经济体的结构和运作。”“如果构建和检验假设是为了服务于共同利益，就必须有一套强大的伦理规则相伴随，以限制个体和群体的那些更大的公共目标相冲突的自私行为。个体和群体的行动必须在某种形式的监督之下进行，这样才能以最小的扭曲来评估这些行为和假设。换言之，分散的控制必须受到某种层度的从上到下中央干预的管制，这是自由市场本身所无法完成的。”“作为一个了解这个世界并进行适应的手段，科学方法不能孤立的存在。他的实践必须在一个个个体拥有机会和自由的代议制民主组织的背景中。”