Darwinian Economics

Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so-- than to constantly bear this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, I am convinced that the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood..............Chuck D., Orig. of Spec.

Of course Malthus was there first. For man as well as mouse, increases in abundance are quickly consumed and used to increase population. For us as well as for the wild flowers, the bitterest competition in the struggle for existence is the competition against the members of our own species. Hardly any principle of economics is so ancient, so clearly demonstrated, or so widely ignored as this Malthusian trap. Nor does any fact or principle grate so harshly against the idea of a larger ethics.

The ancients mostly recognized this fact and embraced its grim consequences: frequent or incessant war against the other. A few isolated human populations understood and embraced the only alternative - population control. Only in the latter part of the twentieth century did humane and widely available means become available, but can the human race control its population on a volutary basis?

Evidence to date is mixed. Every nation that has reached an advanced economy seems to have seen its fertility rate plummet. The big success story is China, the only place where mandatory controls have been enforced very thoroughly.

Of course the hypothesized end of the struggle for existence has some perils of its own.

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