Thorstein Veblen's Darwinian framework and gene-culture coevolution theory

Abstract

At the turn of the previous century, Thorstein Veblen used Darwinian evolutionary principles to explain the macro-historical evolution of human societies, as well as the institutional structure of the modern pecuniary culture. Even if Veblen had a strong intuitive grasp of the evolutionary forces operating in society, he was not always clear and explicit in developing his ideas towards a full-fledged, consistent evolutionary social theory. This paper argues that a relatively recent theoretical approach, gene-culture coevolution theory, has the conceptual apparatus to remedy this problem and thus make Veblen's ideas an important part of contemporary evolutionary thinking in social theory.

Keywords:

• Thorstein Veblen
• Darwinian theory
• gene-culture coevolution
• dual inheritance
• cultural evolution

JEL Classification:

• B15
• B31
• B52
• Z13

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous referees and the editor of the journal for their helpful comments and suggestions. I retain full responsibility for any remaining errors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Throughout the text, when referring to gene-culture coevolution theory, I will essentially follow one of the most recent and detailed expositions of the theory by Richerson and Boyd (2005).

2 Another sub-class under “decision-making forces” is the Lamarckian-evolution-like process of “guided variation”, where people introduce non-random changes to existing cultural variants (modifications, innovations, etc.), which are then transmitted to others in society. Under the effect of guided variation “[t]he system is a little like an imaginary genetic system in which mutations tend to be fitness-enhancing rather than random” (Richerson and Boyd 2005, p. 116). If, for example, a group of people receives a cultural variant from another group, such as a particular technology or a religious idea, but adopts this variant not exactly as it is but by modifying it so as to make it conform to the existing socio-economic condition, this will exemplify “guided variation”.

3 Veblen was content with explaining institutional change as the cumulative result of the adaptation of habits, and did not give much thought and attention to the mechanisms of this adaptive process. As already alluded above, what really mattered for him was the idea that one way or another people's habitual behavior undergoes an adaptive process of change, and that it is this process which is responsible for institutional evolution. In judging Veblen's lack of concern for the details of adaptive change, we must also remember, however, that in his time there was not a consensus, even among biologists, as to the exact mechanisms of this adaptive process (Hodgson 2004a). It was largely with the rise of Mendelian genetics in the 20^th century that the details of the mechanisms of evolution started to be worked out in biology through the contribution of several generations of biologists. It was shown, for example, that the Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics was not possible in biological organisms. One can argue, therefore, that a similar task awaits the attention and theoretical labor of evolutionary social scientists today. Even though there have been considerable advances in recent years (as, for instance, gene-culture coevolution theory shows), the analysis of the mechanisms of evolutionary social change still needs important theoretical contributions. And, as for Veblen's socio-economic theory in particular, a similar argument can be made with even more force. But still, the stock of theoretical knowledge in other areas of evolutionary social science, even if in need of further development itself, has a lot to offer to make the Veblenian framework more in line with modern evolutionary theorizing today.

4 Let me observe at this point that just like gene-culture coevolution theory, Veblen has integrated human instinctive dispositions into the main framework of an evolutionary social analysis. Unlike Rutherford (1984), therefore, who maintains that anything that Veblen has uttered about human societies could be reformulated without any recourse to human instincts, I would like to maintain that the theory of instincts in Veblen was one of the indispensible constituent elements of his evolutionary social analysis. In fact, Veblen saw the historical evolution of human societies as a battle field for essentially two different kinds of habits and institutions: those that create predatory cultures based on the self-regarding instinct of predation/acquisition, and those that give rise to “peaceful” cultures based on the instinct of workmanship and parental bent (Edgell 1975). However, even though Veblen was quite successful in making innate psychological dispositions, instincts, as an element of the study of human habits and institutions, when it comes to specifying the mechanisms in which habits adapt to existing or changing social conditions, he did not incorporate instinctive dispositions, with sufficient clarity and explicitness, into his evolutionary analysis. Perhaps the only exception to this would be his use of the instinct of “emulation” in The Theory of the Leisure Class as a mechanism of adaptive habituation, and his mention of a disposition to “conform” to the established habits in society. These psychological dispositions used by Veblen play a very similar role to that of biased transmission in gene-culture coevolution theory, as I shall briefly discuss below.

5 This is again very similar to Veblen's argument in The Theory of the Leisure Class that the “canons of taste” (preferences) of the leisure class are transmitted to the lower classes, which are in the habit of emulating the former.

6 See Kologlugil (2012) for a discussion about how digital technology has made possible the emergence of the free software movement, which exemplifies a culture of sharing and cooperation among software engineers based on their workmanship habits of thought.