Abstract

Evolutionary game theory has recently furnished some exciting theoretical and experimental insights regarding the birth of social power and discrimination. But can this type of theory illuminate the history and nature of capitalism? The answer turns out to be negative: evolutionary models are bound to remain either insufficiently evolutionary or hopelessly indeterminate. However, social theorists have much to gain from understanding what would breathe social life into evolutionary game theory's models: a proper historical account of the sources of behavioral variety, and an adaptive mechanism that leaves room for the cunning of human reason