Economic History AssociationBionomics: The Inevitability of Capitalism. by Michael Rothschild Review by: Joel Mokyr The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 524-525 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2123166 . Accessed: 21/05/2012 08:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and Economic History Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Economic History. http://www.jstor.org bold. Veseth does not offer any quantitativeevidence. I remainunconvinced that Victorian tax and debt policies provide an importantexplanation of late Victorian growth problems.S. Yet the overall message of this iconoclastic book is worth listeningto. 423. though parts of his analysis of public finance in the 1980sare insightful. the roles of bureaucraciesand corporations-everything is fair game.This is an interestingpoint but here. It is rare indeed that scholarshipis transformed total outsiders-the sociology of science and indeed humannatureitself by are pitted against it. In the end. $24. technical.He is best on his home ground: delineatingthe achievements and problems of recent reforms of the Social Security system. it is quite possible that the effect of the bias was trivial. Jones look like obscurantistantiquarians. xv. competition. For example. he brings to bear a wider readingof the relevantliteratureand more evidence than he did in his treatment of RenaissanceFlorenceand VictorianBritain. two responses often occur: the insiders latch on to the lack of formal training to dismiss the work of laypersonsas the trivialproductof an interloperor a crackpot. CUNY Bionomics: The Inevitability of Capitalism. but a casual inspection of governmentdata reveals that the income tax was rarelymore than20 percentof the centralgovernment's budget and usually closer to 10 or 15 percent.95. economy. Douglass C. it can only come from carefulspecificationof the experiences to be studied. New York: Henry Holt. North and Eric L. a thoroughimmersion in the literature the period. If the longer-term movementof economic historyis to have a usable present. Given the low rates of the British income tax. economic development.Yet-considering the detailand depthof his secondary sources-his descriptionsof the demographic. of technology. less frequently.or. The key to understanding how an . Veseth notes a bias in the Victorian income tax: depreciationwas not tax deductibleand thereforemighthave provided an incentiveto hold on to olderequipment. In Veseth's analysis of the post-World War II U. poverty. This is a book on economics by an outsider. and then go about their business. MichaelRothschild(not to be confusedwith the well-knowntheoristby the same name) is a lawyer and businessman. When outsiders venture into well-troddenintellectual fields.and a precise detailingof the chains and webs of historical of developments. Queens College and The Graduate School. the issue is not the potentialbias but the actual effect. accordingto his own methodologyit should have been possible to carefullydetail the links between the evolving structuralshifts of the 1960s and 1970s and the appearanceof federal deficits in the late 1970s. Furthermore. and communicationsstructuralchanges are distressinglyvague. Comparedto the ambition and sweep of Rothschild.but it is unclear in what manner. and original.the income tax was overwhelminglyborne by the wealthy (at quite low rates) at a time when most other revenue sources were quite regressive.524 Reviews of Books income tax is characterizedas burdensome. By Michael Rothschild. as with the expenditure biases induced by Florence's catasto tax reform. Veseth's readingof economic historyis too narrowlyfocused and empirically imprecise.they acknowledgethat the newcomerhas broughta breeze of fresh air into old debates that have gone stale. because what it proposes is a truly historicalview of economics. MICHAEL EDELSTEIN.financial. Still more interestingin his use of the ideology and politicaleconomy of California'sProposition13 referendum explainthe curiouseconomics and politics to of Reagan'sfederaltax reformsof the early 1980s. It is wide-ranging.which acceleratedthe federaldeficit to unprecedentedpeacetime levels. Pp.who has ventured into economic theory and economic history to offer a new interpretation practicallyeverything:markets. 1990. Third. Thus.but there is no such carefulmapping. The author'sdescriptionof technologicalchange at Darwinchicken farms. a weakness that blunts the attacks that this otherwise thoughtful and knowledgeable author launches against economics. Yet such howlersare but superficial blemisheson a seriousidea. and institutionsare expected to survive depending on their relative contributionto economic performanceor "fitness" (hence the subtitle)." During the three decades between 1895 and 1925. many scholarsagree on this-and Rothschildis less lonely than he supposes. Robert Constantine. will pick up the story where he left off. For most Americansliving at the turnof the twentiethcentury. An evolutionaryapproach.Reviews of Books 525 economy operates. Rothschild maintains. The economy. 184).led lives of "perfect stability" without travellingmore than a few miles from their homes and in abject poverty. not a practicalone" (p. the period . Economists such as Jack Hirshleifer. Geoffrey Hodgson. By not living up to that requirement. and it would be a pity if the book were to be dismissed for frivolous reasons. Most Englishmenaround 1700. Readersof this Journal will scarcely have to be persuadedthat a thoroughknowledgeof economic historyis essential to anyone who wants to take economics out of the fetters of static analysis.which was recently developed by evolutionarybiologists and system analysts. Others. Yet the conditio sine qua non of an evolutionary approach to economics is to know and use more history. It is thereforeunfortunate that Rothschild's knowledge of history and economic history is highly deficient. as is the startling statementthat Marx and his followers accepted Malthus'spredictions(p. It is full of provocative and interestinginsights. This approach. and help create the new economics about which he and many others dream.In point of fact. scant scientific or technologicalprogresshad been madesince the decline of Greece 1700years earlier" (p. 591. Technologicalchange is envisaged using niche theory. in Rothschild's view is an "ecosystem" in which the rate of change is directly related to the degree of diversity present. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Rothschildhas weakened his case. and his emphasis on inter-firmcooperation and cross-fertilizationmakes for compellingreadingfor anyone interestedin the historyof technology. and a brand new journal. 1990. Socialism. maintainsRothschild. 8) would be grounds for academic dismissal at my institution. "Progress [before the IndustrialRevolution]was a spiritualmatter. JOELMOKYR. Edited by J. even if it is not as revolutionary Rothschild supposes. He rejects the mechanicalanalogiesof neoclassicaleconomics as irrelevant. Northwestern University Letters of Eugene V. is an understandingthat it is an evolving system ruledby Darwinianselection processes. 20). however. especially in biology and business. Debs (3 volumes). He has found that metaphorin biology.dedicated to the pursuitof this analogy. lxxxvii. Pp. if of adoptedwidely. could yield rich insights in the understanding economic institutions and technologicalprogress.can come to grips with the problemsof chance versus destiny and path dependency versus choice under constraints in the development of technology and institutions.and insteadsearches for a metaphorthat will help him to understandlong-runhistoricaleconomic change. evolutionary economics is by definitionhistoricaland requiresa full and detailedknowledgeof history. Just as one cannot study evolutionary biology without knowing something about fossils. Paul David.Douglass North. Beyond that. The Journal of Evolutionary Economics has appeared. The dynamics of this ecosystem is representedby punctuatedequilibria. The statementthat "except for Gutenberg'sinventionof movable type. and Richard Nelson have for a long time been advocating this approach. Rothschildhas read an enormousamountand educatedhimself in a host of unrelated fields. Eugene Victor Debs was "Mr. the plea to introducean explicit evolutionarydimensioninto economics to make it better in as coping with non-market phenomenais surely timely. Unkind critics might exploit some of the more egregious errors to discredit the entire approach as the work of a dilettante.by showing how the present is shaped from the past by a combination of accidental innovations and selection mechanisms.
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