From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Oct 21 2002 - 11:04:04 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
>--- Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Capitalism is probably a human invention. I'm not even sure how it
>>could be defined so that we could look around for non-human analogs.
>>
>>
>
>Evolution is capitalism in action.
>...
>
It's a good slogan, but as a usable definition it lacks a bit. Still,
it might be a fair place to start from. How do you define capitalism
and how do you define evolution? I feel a connection, but I find myself
unable to verbalize it. Do you intend evolution here to include the
formal mathematical theory? If so, then you are talking about something
as omnipresent as gravity. This might be what you mean, but I'm unsure.
Territory, e.g., has two ESS within a species. In one the holder of the
territory defends his turf against invaders, in the other he quickly
moves over into another's territory. The second form is rare, but it is
an ESS that evolves naturally under certain specifiable environmental
constraints. (I think the main known example is a group of social
spiders in central america.)
Similarly, if we can create a mathematical theory of capitalism, we
would necessarily define the environments in which a socialism of some
sort would be mixed with it. In fact, it's probably impossible to
define it without also defining the theory of socialism, where a group
is evolving. Examples of this occur frequently, from the many examples
in the hymenoptera to the rare examples in the mammals (mole rats are
the only one's that spring to mind). It would need to specify both of
those, as well as the stable states in between.
I only have a vague outsiders knowledge of the details here, but with
proper definitions your slogan may capture a true essence.
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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