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Concept
Evolutionary economics
Summary
Evolutionary economics is a school of economic thought that is inspired by evolutionary biology. Although not defined by a strict set of principles and uniting various approaches, it treats economic development as a process rather than an equilibrium and emphasizes change (qualitative, organisational, and structural), innovation, complex interdependencies, self-evolving systems, and limited rationality as the drivers of economic evolution. The support for the evolutionary approach to economics in recent decades seems to have initially emerged as a criticism of the mainstream neoclassical economics, but by the beginning of the 21st century it had become part of the economic mainstream itself.
Evolutionary economics does not take the characteristics of either the objects of choice or of the decision-maker as fixed. Rather, it focuses on the non-equilibrium processes that transform the economy from within and their implications, considering interdependencies and feedback. The processes in turn emerge from the actions of diverse agents with bounded rationality who may learn from experience and interactions and whose differences contribute to the change.
The idea of human society and the world in general as subject to evolution has been following the mankind throughout its existence. Hesiod, an ancient Greek poet thought to be the first Western written poet regarding himself as an individual, described five Ages of Man – the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Heroic Age, and the Iron Age – following from divine existence to toil and misery. Modern scholars consider his works as one of the sources for early economic thought. The concept is also present in the Metamorphoses by an ancient Roman poet Ovid. His Four Ages include technological progress: in the Golden Age, men did not know arts and craft, whereas by the Iron Age people had learnt and discovered agriculture, architecture, mining, navigation, and national boundaries, but had also become violent and greedy.
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