Economics as mechanics and the demise of biological diversity

Abstract

Macro explanations of the loss of biological diversity have emphasized how higher population levels have forced the transformation of relatively undisturbed areas and how industrial pollutants and energy-intensive agriculture have put new, and relatively uniform, selective pressures on species. This paper explores how a third macro phenomena, social organization based on specialization and exchange, has contributed to the demise of biological diversity. The world was a patchwork quilt of nearly independent regions until a century ago. Knowledge, technologies and supporting social structures evolved relatively independently within each of the patches of the quilt. With only regional exchange, a wide variety of crops were grown within each patch for subsistence. Hence, people applied diverse selective pressure on the biological system within and across the patches. This pattern, combined with low population levels such that people only applied selective pressure to a portion of each patch, meant that people had relatively little detrimental impact on biological diversity overall and in some cases even enhanced biological diversity. During this past century the patchwork quilt has transformed into a global exchange economy supporting a fourfold increase in population. The global order is organized around a monolithic vision based on comparative advantage, specialization, and exchange. This understanding, common to both capitalist and socialist countries, has resulted in a reduction in the number of crops grown over broad regions. Yet since each region responds to the market signals generated by changes in all of the other regions, there has been more variation within each region with respect to which crops are grown in any given year. Specialization has reduced the diversity of selective pressure of agricultural practices on species, while increased annual variation within each region has selected against species with narrow niches. The dominant vision of social organization stems from the Newtonian model of systems consisting of mechanically related atomistic parts. This view contrasts with our model of ecological systems consisting of tightly coevolved parts and relations. The maintenance of biological diversity will require moderation of the dominant vision and social organization more often designed around a coevolutionary world view. © 1987.