The future of evolutionary economics

Geoffrey M. Hodgson ()

Chapter 8 in From Marx to Markets, 2025, pp 168-195 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Chapter 8 addresses evolutionary economics. Despite the growing use of this label since the 1980s, the words evolution and evolutionary have no precise meaning. It is neither necessary nor even possible to give them a precise and widely accepted meaning. Instead, it is important to develop some shared core principles to define this approach. Despite the popularity of the label, in over 40 years since the publication of Richard Nelson's and Sidney Winter's An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982), this has not been achieved. A minority approach known as generalized Darwinism proposes that abstract Darwinian principles have some application to socio-economic evolution. Yet this is resisted by many evolutionary economists, without providing an adequate alternative. As well as outlining generalized Darwinism, this chapter considers some possible but misconceived reasons for that resistance.

Keywords: Evolutionary economics; Richard Nelson; Sidney Winter; Social Darwinism; Generalized Darwinism; Population thinking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035350094
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