The pitfalls of Darwinian 'progress'. A comment on 'Evolvability and progress in evolutionary economics' by Tim Cochrane and James Maclaurin

摘要

In their paper “Evolvability and progress in evolutionary economics”, recently published in this journal,~1 Tim Cochrane and JamesMaclaurin set out to develop a notion of evolutionary progress that is supposed to be usable in evolutionary economics. Specifically, it is supposed to be able to guide both public policymakers and firm leaders in their decisions. This is a valuable and urgently needed venture—a concept of evolutionary progress would certainly help improve the quality of evolutionary economists’ policy advice. While Nelson and Winter (1982), in their unfortunately much ignored Chapter 15, urged scholars in the field to think about these issues, very few have dared to enter this uncharted territory. Most have failed. I will argue that the account suggested by Cochrane and Maclaurin (C&M in the following) joins the list of failures. Here’s why.