Economists on Darwin ’ s theory of social evolution and human behaviour 1

The purpose of this article is to analyse the way economists interested in social and economic evolution cite, mention or refer to Darwin. We focus on the attitude of economists towards Darwin’s theory of social evolution – an issue he considered as central to his theory. We show that economists refer to and mention Darwin as a biologist and neglect or ignore his theory of social and cultural evolution. Three types of reference are identified: first, economists view and quote Darwin as having borrowed concepts from classical political economists, Malthus and Smith. Darwin is then mentioned to emphasize the existence of economic theories of social evolution. Second, economists refer to and cite Darwin from the perspective of the use of biological concepts in social sciences. Darwin's biological theories are then equated with those of Spencer. From these two perspectives, Darwin's theory of social evolution is ignored and Darwin considered as a biologist exclusively. Third, economists acknowledge the existence of Darwin's general (biological and social) theory of evolution. Darwin is then considered and quoted as a biologist and a social evolutionist. Key-words: Darwin, social evolution, evolutionary economics, bioeconomics JEL classification: A 11, B 52. 1 Earlier versions of this text were presented at a History of Social Sciences Seminar (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan), at the 2004 HES meetings in Toronto (University of Toronto), at the Amsterdam-Cachan Workshop (University of Amsterdam) and at a research seminar at the Max Plank Institute. I am grateful to all those who cooperated in the research for this paper. For the discussions, I thank Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, Michael T. Ghiselin, Jack Hirshleifer, and Gordon Tullock. For further comments on earlier drafts, I thank Bruce Caldwell, Loïc Charles, Philippe Fontaine, Elias Khalil, Roger Koppl, Michael T. Ghiselin, Sophie Harnay, Jack Hirhsleifer, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Robert J. Leonard, Maud Pélissier, Jack Vromen and Ulrich Witt.