Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics

 "The real voyage of discover consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust

http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Wealth-Evolution-Complexity-Economics/dp/157851777X

evolution is a "blind watchmaker" Richard Dawkins p.188.

Lego theory of evolutionary design: limited # of building blocks but many permutations.

The foundational texts of evolutionary economics and complexity economics.

Social technologies are designs, processes, and rules that humans use to organize themselves. Villages, armies, matrix organizations, paper money, the rule of law, inventory managment, etc. 238

the multibillion dollar question is which social, physical (technology), and business norms, interact in symbiosis to create the optimal economic-social development in our evolutionary space? 430 (ask this question of conservative vs. liberal?)  Individual norms, cooperative norms, innovation norms.

One final norm is important for all three: how people view time. 430.

The results of the "prisoners dilema" and the spiral down to mutual harm rather than mutual gain: "...In low cooperation society, non-zero sum attitudes are essentially beaten out of the agents over time and they eventually learn to become zero-sum agents. Researchers often find there is a tipping point: once a society is past a threshold ratio of non-cooperators vs. cooperators in a population, it becomes very hard to maintain large-scale cooperation, resulting in a [the downward spiral of a] 'poverty trap'." This reminds me of the tea party/fundamentalist cognitive structure. Is America at that tipping-point? It may be that the next election will determine that question. http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Wealth-Evolution-Complexity-Economics/dp/157851777X

The most significant factor of economic development is the state of a nations social technology (methods and designs of organizing people): the rule of law, property rights, well organized banking system, economic transparency, a lack of corruption, organizing and management, and other social-institutional structures...263

The Big Man social technologies of the Northwest tribes to corporations. 270-271