Robert J. Bradbury, <bradbury@www.aeiveos.com>, writes:
> Robin, this raises some very interesting questions. Have economists
> considered the parallels between "economies" and "ecosystems"?
> What are the similarities and differences between the two?
In the process they compare biological ecosystems with economic markets. Their main conclusion is that the driving force in ecosystems is the predator-prey relationship, while in market systems the main factor is cooperative trade, symbiosis:
"Nature is commonly viewed as harmonious and human markets as full of strife, yet the above comparison suggests the opposite. The psychological prominence of unusual phenomena may explain the apparent inversion of the common view. Symbiosis stands out in biology: we have all heard of the unusual relationship between crocodiles and the birds that pluck their parasites, but one hears less about the more common kind of relationship between crocodiles and each of the many animals they eat...
"Similarly, fraud and criminality stand out in markets. Newspapers report major instances of fraud and embezzlement, but pay little attention to each day's massive turnover of routinely satisfactory cereal, soap and gasoline in retail trade. Crime is unusual and interesting; trade is common and boring.
"... [I]magine that predation were as fundamental to markets as to biology. Instead of confronting occasional instances of theft in a background of trade, one would be surrounded by neighbors who had stolen their cars from dealers who had mounted an armed assault on factories in Detroit, which in turn had grabbed their parts and equipment by pillaging job-shops in the surrounding countryside."
Hal