Evolutionary view of economic growth
- Oxford Clarendon Press 1981
- 139 p.
This pioneering work draws not only on economics and history but also on anthropology and ethology. It is about the survival of the fittest economic societies. Its theme is that economic growth is an extension of organic evolution.
Growth is best interpreted as the adaptation of structures inherited from the past whether political, economic, social or psychological-to the pressures of a changing environment. The inherited structures are the legacy of past adaptation.
Environmental pressures arise from the relationship of a society with nature, the population, natural resource balance - or with other societies-earning opportunities, military competition or demonstration effects. Societies differ in rates and patterns of growth because of the differing incidence of the key environmental variables or because of differences in institutional heritage.
Economic and general social- especially political-changes are thus intertwined in a complex adaptive web in any society. And the growth processes of different societies fit into a wider global pattern of adaptation by the species as a whole.
Finally, it is argued that the traditional real income criteria for growth are scientifically meaningless when applied to history-the essence of all historical processes generally recognized as growth is increase not in welfare, but in the capacity of the relevant societies to support human life (in terms of longevity or of numbers). Ashok Guha is Professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.