Featured image: adapted from turek/Pexels

Evolutionary economics — Part 1: Evolutionary origins of economic principles

That economics goes back further than the ‘father of economics’, Adam Smith, is not really contested. But might it go back way beyond the first humans, all the way to early life forms on our planet?

The term ‘economics’ is not always used with the greatest of precision. For some it is all about making profit (at the expense of someone else), for others it is concerned with facilitating trade (e.g., through free markets). But in essence, it is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. If all we needed and wanted were available in abundance, economics wouldn’t exist. Yet the vast majority of what we require is scarce, and requires sacrifices to obtain. We turn our scarce time and effort into money by working, and we turn scarce money into stuff — from food we convert into energy, to other needs and wants like security (a decent roof over our heads) and pleasure (Netflix). When resources are scarce, thriving becomes a matter of two things: being effective at obtaining them, and being efficient at consuming them. The better we are at allocating our available time and effort, the more money we have, and the less time, energy and money we waste, the more we have to spend on what we…