1. Economics and human evolution

Comment #175509 by kirasaffron on May 5, 2008 at 2:19 pm

The Author,

Doesn't Dawkins mention that trades between organisms and symbiotic relationships are very similar to money trades in human societies? He also thinks that evolution proceeds through a very small individual level, the gene. Capitalism works through individual successes in a market with no centralized authority, as natural selection chooses the most suited genes for a particular environment with no authority; i.e. God. How would genes be selected through pure altruist behavior seen in socialist and communist societies? They wouldn't, unless humans were haplo-diploid, like eusocial insects. I don't think capitalism caused us to be human. I think capitalism is just the most natural political system, and is similar to natural selection. I also don't understand why people on the left that think evolution is plausible don't like capitalism, and why people on the right that like capitalism think evolution leads to altruistic, socialist societies.