English reading 002

Matt Ridley< The Rational Optimist> English reading 002

I think this author builds a good combination between Adam Smith and Charles Darwin. Human history is like a “Adam Smith” to pursue self-interest, and it’s also like “Charles Darwin (more broadly speaking to mutualistic symbiosis)” to exchange goods/ideas to foster innovation.

Some notes to share below.

1.I shall argue that there was a point in human pre-history when big-brained, cultural, learning people for the first time began to exchange things with each other, and that once they started doing so, culture suddenly became cumulative, and the great headlong experiment of human economic ‘progress’ began. Exchange is to cultural evolution as sex is to biological evolution.

2. Specialisation encouraged innovation, because it encouraged the investment of time in a tool-making tool. That saved time, and prosperity is simply time saved, which is proportional to the division of labour.

3. You are not just consuming the labour and resources of others. You are consuming others’ inventions, too.

4. Exchange is to technology as sex is to evolution. It stimulates novelty.