Going back to that article in Wired again, the part about the locusts makes me think of Marx, or actually why he
was wrong. After all, locusts seems like a pretty good description of
how a Marxist might view capitalists. Marx, it turns out incorrectly, predicted
the collapse of capitalism. He noted that that the engine that drives
the market, competition, quickly reduces a business' profits. In order
to get people to buy its products, a business has to keep reducing prices below that of its competitors, eventually
to the point where their revenues are the same as costs. They are cannibalizing each others' profits.
This is a lot like how locusts work, in that they actually eat each other. But, as Couzin's Locust Accelerator shows, instead of devolving
into a pellmell feeding frenzy you get this really interesting form of
spontaneous order. As each individual locust follows the simple rule of
trying to eat the locust in front of it, while trying to avoid the
locust behind it, the locusts start churning around in a circle. In
nature, the swarm devours a field, and then flies off as the locusts try
to escape each other and eat each other at the same time. Behind, the
field is denuded.
The reason capitalism doesn't collapse is because, just like how locusts move from field to field, capitalists keep shifting their investments. The market continuously creates different products. And this happens for the same reasons locusts swarm.
Businesses will respond to declining profits from increasing competition by selling different products, products that their competitors aren't making, just like locusts moving forward to avoid getting eaten. And businesses will respond to other businesses making a profit off new products by copying them and then underselling them, like locusts eating each other. Which forces those businesses to again develop different products. Taken as a whole, this creates an incredible impetus across the entire swarm to keep moving. Even in a closed economy, like Couzin's Locust Accelerator, spontaneous order develops and the swarm starts moving around in a circle, and the engine of capitalism keeps turning.
This is the equivalent of changing fashions. Think of an economy that makes red colored products one year, then blue, then green, and then right back to red. Part of the assumption here is that there are certain costs that the business can't capture. It takes a costs a certain amount in advertising to create a market in red things. The first business makes money by being able to charge higher prices because there aren't any competitors. The followers make money by selling red things cheaper, without having to pay the cost of development. Eventually competition becomes too fierce and some business comes up with the idea of selling people on blue things. Pretty soon, there's no one left behind making the now unfashionable red things, at least until the green thing market becomes too competitive.
It works because of the tendency to swarm. As soon as you realize the tendency to glom up, that the distribution of capitalists like the distribution of locusts isn't even, it's apparent that capitalism isn't about to collapse. Old fields are denuded of capitalists and left to grow back. When you think about it, locusts are remarkably well adapted organisms that have been around for a long time, and aren't going to disappear just because they eat each other. Same with capitalists. The beauty of capitalism isn't that it attains equilibrium, it's that it never does.
Of course, people are rather more than locusts. Unlike locusts, people can develop new technologies and it is this same cannibalistic nature of capitalism that also makes it so innovative. There have been a lot of people who have looked at this self-devouring display called competition and thought they could plan a better, less destructive, economic system. But it's difficult to think of a better impetus to keep moving than the threat of being eaten.
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| Cannibalism, keeping the capitalist swarm moving |
The reason capitalism doesn't collapse is because, just like how locusts move from field to field, capitalists keep shifting their investments. The market continuously creates different products. And this happens for the same reasons locusts swarm.
Businesses will respond to declining profits from increasing competition by selling different products, products that their competitors aren't making, just like locusts moving forward to avoid getting eaten. And businesses will respond to other businesses making a profit off new products by copying them and then underselling them, like locusts eating each other. Which forces those businesses to again develop different products. Taken as a whole, this creates an incredible impetus across the entire swarm to keep moving. Even in a closed economy, like Couzin's Locust Accelerator, spontaneous order develops and the swarm starts moving around in a circle, and the engine of capitalism keeps turning.
This is the equivalent of changing fashions. Think of an economy that makes red colored products one year, then blue, then green, and then right back to red. Part of the assumption here is that there are certain costs that the business can't capture. It takes a costs a certain amount in advertising to create a market in red things. The first business makes money by being able to charge higher prices because there aren't any competitors. The followers make money by selling red things cheaper, without having to pay the cost of development. Eventually competition becomes too fierce and some business comes up with the idea of selling people on blue things. Pretty soon, there's no one left behind making the now unfashionable red things, at least until the green thing market becomes too competitive.
It works because of the tendency to swarm. As soon as you realize the tendency to glom up, that the distribution of capitalists like the distribution of locusts isn't even, it's apparent that capitalism isn't about to collapse. Old fields are denuded of capitalists and left to grow back. When you think about it, locusts are remarkably well adapted organisms that have been around for a long time, and aren't going to disappear just because they eat each other. Same with capitalists. The beauty of capitalism isn't that it attains equilibrium, it's that it never does.
Of course, people are rather more than locusts. Unlike locusts, people can develop new technologies and it is this same cannibalistic nature of capitalism that also makes it so innovative. There have been a lot of people who have looked at this self-devouring display called competition and thought they could plan a better, less destructive, economic system. But it's difficult to think of a better impetus to keep moving than the threat of being eaten.
