Evolutionary Economics Blog
Economics is at its most simplest about human beings producing and consuming. These activities always occur in a context – be it historical, cultural, biological, ethical, philosophical or spiritual. Economics is today framed in a materialist context with the over riding tendency to self interest at the material level. In traditional economics and in what is called ‘evolutionary economics’ there appears to be minimal enquiry into what it means to be a human being at the most fundamental philosophical and spiritual levels, and what motivates and drives economic activity. I want to introduce an enquiry grounded in the biggest possible perspective on human life into economic theory and to see what will emerge in terms of economic behavior and structures.
I aim to keep this enquiry practical and simple and yet go deeper into questions of the human spirit that are not usually associated with economics.
Efficiency continued
Jun 17th, 2010
It was revealing to search out the dictionary definitions of efficiency.
Oxford concise Science Dictionary: a measure of performance of a machine, engine etc being the ratio of the energy or power it delivers to the energy or power fed to it. In general the efficiency of a machine varies with the conditions under which it [...]
efficiency continued
May 18th, 2010I have spoken about the how the word efficiency is a human construct. In today’s developed world, two major and opposing views on efficiency: the political and business culture is all about efficiency as the shortest distance between two points ie as a straight line under all circumstances. The other view from the sub set post [...]
Efficiency informed by spirit
Oct 13th, 2009
The use of the word efficiency is starting to appear everywhere. This week I came across three examples: Harvard University Professor Marc Hauser writing for The American Scientist in its September 2009 special issue on ‘Understanding origins’ referred in his article on ‘The origins of the mind’ to human beings as “exchanging information in a [...]
Evolutionary Efficiency
Oct 4th, 2009In the previous blog on efficiency we saw that this concept has become one of the most powerful values in economics and in our society today. One could argue that efficiency is an evolutionary trait that is linked to our amazing ability to survive as a species in at times horrendous climatic conditions over the [...]
Efficiency
Jun 22nd, 2009Economics has been defined in many ways over the last 200 years. I will define it simply as the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. It is interesting that Adam Smith, who many proclaim to be the father of the study of economics didn’t leave us with a definition. He was an academic moral [...]