"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.
Someone around here is confused, that's for sure.
First of all, actors in the free market usually have a long-term business plan. Do organisms have such a plan?
The players in a free market are analogous to individuals in the biosphere. Companies have business plans (some of them, anyway), and individual creatures have their motivations. However, what's missing here -- as both Gould and Smith understood -- is an overall planner. In a free market, there is no Stalin or Hillary who puts out a 5-year plan, and who must approve all exceptions. And in the biosphere, there is no "designer" who is orchestrating the whole shebang.
Secondly, "competition" in economics is fundamentally different than competition in nature.
They're not fundamentally different at all. That's why the Gould-Smith analogy is such a compelling one.
To be successful economically, a company must fill a need for a customer.
Yes, we know. And it must do so with the limited resources available, and in a competitive environment, and it must behave so as to remain in business, etc. The whole free-market/evolution analogy.
Which "customer" does a lion serve when he "competes" with a zebra?
Are you really as confused as your question indicates?
The whole notion that laissez-faire economics is comparable to free-market economics is obvious baloney.
Yes, you really are confused.
The idea of free-markets is not anarchy.
Right. And to continue with the Gould-Smith analogy, evolution is a process that is governed by natural law.
The idea behind it [free-market economics] is that the participants possess the "intelligence," hence centralized "intelligence" or planning is unnecessary and often harmful.
Actually ... no. It's not that the existence of individual intelligence makes the central planning unnecessary. The existence of central planning necessarily suppresses the individual participants' freedom of action -- whether such individual action is intelligent or foolish. And the outcome of a free market situation, like the outcome of the biosphere, is that those who survive will be best suited to do so -- an outcome that cannot be centrally planned.