Generalized Darwinism in Evolutionary Economics: The Devil is in the Details

Abstract

This paper is a follow-up on two earlier debates I was part of. One debate is documented in a special issue of The Journal of Economic Methodology, edited by Matthias Klaes and called Symposium: Ontological Issues in Evolutionary Economics (2004) The other one is reported in a special issue of The Journal of Evolutionary Economics edited by Ulrich Witt and called Evolutionary Concepts in Economics and Biology (2006), which is (as Witt notes in his Editorial) mainly about the appropriateness and fruitfulness of Universal Darwinism (or, following Hodgson and Knudsen, I henceforth refer to Generalized Darwinism) in and for evolutionary economics. The present paper is meant to be a further contribution to this latter debate.