ABSTRACT
In the foregoing chapters, several issues have been touched upon that are raised by economists in overt or covert relation to biological evolutionary theory. First of all, there is of course the clear reference to natural selection in the selection argument. In the discussion of Williamson’s transaction cost economics, notions like ‘Panglossianism’ and ‘strong versus weak selectionism’ have shown up. In this connection, it was also mentioned that Williamson claims that his own explanation of the replacement of the U-form firm by the M-form firm meets the conditions of Elster’s ‘full functionalism’. We have also seen that Jensen holds that ‘survival of the fittest’ is a useful tautology. And, finally, there was Nelson and Winter’s contention that their evolutionary theory is Lamarckian, not Darwinian.
