Abstract
Our thesis is that the reason many of us today are inclined toward socialism (explicit cooperation) and against laissez-faire capitalism (implicit cooperation) is because the first type of behavior was much more genetically beneficial during previous generations of our species. There is, however, a seemingly strong argument against this hypothesis: evidence from human prehistory indicates that trade (implicit cooperation) previously was widespread. How, then, can we be hard-wired in favor of socialism and against capitalism if our ancestors were engaged in market behavior in past millennia? Although trade which is self-centered and beneficial (presumably mutually beneficial to all parties in the exchange) did indeed appear hundreds of thousands of years ago, benevolence was established in our hard-wiring very substantially earlier, literally hundreds of millions of years ago, and is therefore far more deeply integrated into the human psyche.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 73-94 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Review of Economic Perspectives |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 1 2019 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Economics, Econometrics and Finance
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