Interpretation of Darwin Seeds the "problem" of today's economics

If we look at the problem of our modern system of economic assumptions, you will recognize a structural and systemic set of policies, ideas and mathematical models which create separation.

The most obvious example is the concept that pollution, ill health of workers and ecosystem damage are considered "externalities" and never recorded on the balance sheet or income statement of any corporation or GDP calculation.

From "The Darwin Project"

"The shift from the emphasis for the first half to the full Darwinian theory and story — and your understanding and involvement — can not only help move us toward the better future. In the long run, it may help save ours and all other species.
What primarily drives human evolution, Darwin wrote in page after page of the long ignored writings that complete his theory, are “the moral qualities.” These, he said, are “advanced, either directly or indirectly, much more through the effects of habit, by our reasoning powers, by instruction, by religion, etc., than through natural selection.”


Hazel Henderson - an economist leading the discussion in many ways of new forms of thinking writes on the topic:

She writes:

"Reappraisals of the work of Charles Darwin together with new evidence from historians, archeologists and anthropologist now clearly point to the evolution of human emotional capacity for bonding, cooperation and altruism.

"Political economy studies, as they were originally termed, rose to academic prominence after the publishing in 1776 of Adam Smith’s great work “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”. Invoking the scientific knowledge of the day, Smith related his famous theory of 

“an invisible hand” that guided the self-interested decisions of business men (sic) to serve the public good and economic growth. Smith drew parallels ascribing this pattern of human behavior to Sir Isaac Newton’s great discovery of the physical laws of motion.

"These principles of Newtonian physics can still be used to guide space craft to land on distant celestial bodies – most recently, Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.

"Economists of the early industrial revolution based their theories not only on Adam Smith’s work, but also on Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man and The Origin of Species (www.thedarwinproject.com). They seized on Darwin’s research on the survival of the fittest and the role of competition among species as additional foundations for their classical economics of “laissez faire” – the idea that human societies could advance wealth and progress by simply allowing the invisible hand of the market to work its magic. In class-ridden Victorian Britain, this led economists and upper-class elites to espouse theories known as “social Darwinism:” the belief that inequities in the distribution of land, wealth and income would nevertheless produce economic growth to trickle down to benefit the less fortunate.

"Charles Darwin saw the human capacity for bonding, cooperation and altruism as an essential factor in our successful evolution.

"So as we have evolved into our complex societies, organizations and technologies of today – we need to re-examine our belief systems and the extent to which they still may be trapped in earlier primitive stages of our development. Why for example do we underestimate our genius for bonding, cooperation and altruism – seemingly stuck in our earlier fears and games of competition and territoriality? Why do we over-reward such behavior and still assume in our economic textbooks and business schools that maximizing one’s individual self-interest in competition with all others is behavior fundamental to human nature?"

Well put, Hazel!