Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/227522 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] Review of Economic Perspectives [ISSN:] 1804-1663 [Volume:] 19 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] De Gruyter [Place:] Warsaw [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 73-94
Publisher: 
De Gruyter, Warsaw
Abstract: 
Our thesis is that the reason many of us today are inclined toward socialism (explicit cooperation) and against laissez-faire capitalism (implicit cooperation) is because the first type of behavior was much more genetically beneficial during previous generations of our species. There is, however, a seemingly strong argument against this hypothesis: evidence from human prehistory indicates that trade (implicit cooperation) previously was widespread. How, then, can we be hard-wired in favor of socialism and against capitalism if our ancestors were engaged in market behavior in past millennia? Although trade which is self-centered and beneficial (presumably mutually beneficial to all parties in the exchange) did indeed appear hundreds of thousands of years ago, benevolence was established in our hard-wiring very substantially earlier, literally hundreds of millions of years ago, and is therefore far more deeply integrated into the human psyche.
Subjects: 
Benevolence
capitalism
evolutionary psychology
hard-wiring
profit and loss
selfishness
JEL: 
Z1
Z10
Z14
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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