In Panda's Thumb by Stephen Jay Gould, the late Harvard Evolutionist, on page 66 he states " In fact, I believe that the theory of natural selection should be viewed as an extended analogy-whether concious or unconcious on Darwin's part I do not know- to the laissez faire economics of Adam Smith."
Thanks for posting that. I wasn't aware of it.
"In Panda's Thumb by Stephen Jay Gould, the late Harvard Evolutionist, on page 66 he states " In fact, I believe that the theory of natural selection should be viewed as an extended analogy-whether concious or unconcious on Darwin's part I do not know- to the laissez faire economics of Adam Smith.""
Goes to show you how confused Gould is along with the author of the original article of this thread.
First of all, actors in the free market usually have a long-term business plan. Do organisms have such a plan?
Secondly, "competition" in economics is fundamentally different than competition in nature. To be successful economically, a company must fill a need for a customer. Which "customer" does a lion serve when he "competes" with a zebra?
The whole notion that laissez-faire economics is comparable to free-market economics is obvious baloney. The idea of free-markets is not anarchy. The idea behind it is that the participants posess the "intelligence," hence centralized "intelligence" or planning is unnecessary and often harmful.