Evolution and Economics

One of the biggest problem with the theory of evolution is that it is cruel. It does not have any self-imposed rules of culture. And that is also probably it's biggest strength. Since it works on the simple rule of "survival of the fittest", it could be applied to just any system which evolves and has a diversity.

Now consider the divide between the rich and the poor. The rich folks definitely have an advantage over the poor in terms of being "fitter for evolution". They have more resources, better health facility, longer life span etc. Hence going by the rues of evolution, they should survive in this game and the poor should become extinct. In reality, however, the human society in structured in such a way as too provide artificial means for the poor to survive. In communism, the state owns all the property and hence resources are distributed equally, in a welfare state like India, the government proactively takes a lot of steps (affirmative action) to reduce poverty, and even in capitalism, you always have some measures taken to reduce inequality in resource distribution. Question is, why are such artificial means of redistribution of resources?

Here is an attempt to find the answer. Human beings, at some point of time in history decided to form civilizations. Man became a social animal. He had probably realized that staying together and helping each other, probably gives a higher payoff to everybody in the group. This payoff would be in terms of protection from other animals, protection from other forces of nature and production of more resources. Now, it may have happened that initially due to selfishness of each individual, the cooperation may not have been so successful. Hence, human beings had to impose certain rules to this game. These set of rules are what we call culture. These rules probably included detestation of murder, rape etc. and also some altruistic virtues. I am not very sure on the point of altruism but somehow I find that human altruism may not always be driven by genes. This phenomenon culture was not arbitrarily started one day. Just like evolution of species, culture has also evolved over a long period of time.

As human society progressed, man became more and more of a social animal. Everybody specialised in some activity and had his place fixed in the society. With these complications, the earlier rules of culture had to be given a more structured form and that gave birth to law. Human civilizations had now shaped into kingdoms or empires with a fixed set of laws. Money had by now evolved as a token of resources you have because you could trade money for them.

However, this system gave rise to inequalities. Some people were able to make more money than others. And this is where the debate starts. One argument would be that some people were able to make more money because they possessed some skills that were rarely possesed by anyone else. This argument would be perfectly in line with the "survival of the fittest theory". Another argument would be that the arbitrarily developed system of culture was giving some people a distinct advantage over the others. This would be the debate between right and left. But that is besides the point here.

Although human beings have imposed this system of culture upon themselves, the inbuilt selfish nature of their genes continues to manifest from time to time. Remember, that the game of evolution has no rules. The contestants are allowed to lie, deceive and cheat. Hence, when a human being's survival is at stake, he would throw away this mask of culture and show the true color of his genes. The most severe of this manifestation is violence. Thus when a man is oppressed to the point that he finds his survival is at stake, he will tend to become violent. This violence is what was captured by the Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar through all his plays.

This is one explanation of why Naxalism started in India. This is a reason for the violence in the African nations. The poorest regions have most violence. I have not read much about his theory, but I think fundamentally, this is what Karl Marx tried to say. Thus the need to strive towards social equity comes from the more fundamental need to preserve the rules of human culture.