,The Evolutionary Origins of Markets
“An important further step in the unification of diverse approaches into a coher-
ent, consilient social exchange science.”
Gerald A. Cory Jr., Author, Former Senior Fellow,
San Jose State University, USA
“The current cutting-edge fields of evolutionary and complexity sciences, cogni-
tive, neuro, brain and behavioral sciences, biological analogies, Institutionalism,
Socio-Economics, and the different related computational strands, still are often
only loosely connected. Those working in these fields will find this book provid-
ing a major step forward by integrating our knowledge on the evolution of human
sociality, its cognitive, emotive, and behavioral foundations. While the literature in
these fields has been exploding, here we have a most welcome integrating trans-
disciplinary work. Applying these stocks of knowledge to the foundations and
evolution of ‘markets,’ socio-economists and social scientists of all perspectives
will find how to make deeper sense of what we have used to call the social and
institutional ‘embeddedness of markets.’ A highly recommended book.”
Prof. Wolfram Elsner, University of Bremen, Germany
Our elaborate market exchange system owes its existence not to our calcu-
lating brain or insatiable self-centeredness, but rather to our sophisticated
and nuanced human sociality and to the inherent rationality built into our
emotions. The modern economic system is helped a lot more than hin-
dered by our innate social instincts that support our remarkable capacity
for building formal and informal institutions.
The book integrates the growing body of experimental evidence on
human nature scattered across a variety of disciplines from experimental
economics to social neuroscience into a coherent and original narrative
about the extent to which market (or impersonal exchange) relations are
reflective of the basic human sociality that was originally adapted to a
more tribal existence.
An accessible resource, this book will appeal to students of all areas
of economics, including Behavioral Economics and Neuro-Economics,
Microeconomics, and Political Economy.
Rojhat Avşar is an associate professor of economics at Columbia College
Chicago. His research and teaching interests include social behavior, ethi-
cal norms, economic discourse, origin of human institutions, and political
economy.
,Economics as Social Theory
Series edited by Tony Lawson
University of Cambridge
Social theory is experiencing something of a revival within economics.
Critical analyses of the particular nature of the subject matter of social
studies and of the types of method, categories, and modes of explana-
tion that can legitimately be endorsed for the scientific study of social
objects, are re-emerging. Economists are again addressing such issues as
the relationship between agency and structure, between economy and
the rest of society, and between the enquirer and the object of enquiry.
There is a r enewed interest in elaborating basic categories such as causa-
tion, competition, culture, discrimination, evolution, money, need, order,
organization, power probability, process, rationality, technology, time,
truth, uncertainty, value, etc.
The objective for this series is to facilitate this revival further. In contem-
porary economics the label “theory” has been appropriated by a group
that confines itself to largely asocial, ahistorical, mathematical “modeling.”
Economics as social theory thus reclaims the “Theory” label, offering a
platform for alternative rigorous, but broader and more critical conceptions
of theorizing.
48. Keynes Against Capitalism
His Economic Case for Liberal Socialism
James Crotty
49. The Nature of Social Reality
Issues in Social Ontology
Tony Lawson
50. The Evolutionary Origins of Markets
How Evolution, Psychology, and Biology Have Shaped the Economy
Rojhat Avşar
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Economics-as-Social-Theory/book-series/EAST
, The Evolutionary Origins of
Markets
How Evolution, Psychology, and
Biology Have Shaped the Economy
Rojhat Avşar
“An important further step in the unification of diverse approaches into a coher-
ent, consilient social exchange science.”
Gerald A. Cory Jr., Author, Former Senior Fellow,
San Jose State University, USA
“The current cutting-edge fields of evolutionary and complexity sciences, cogni-
tive, neuro, brain and behavioral sciences, biological analogies, Institutionalism,
Socio-Economics, and the different related computational strands, still are often
only loosely connected. Those working in these fields will find this book provid-
ing a major step forward by integrating our knowledge on the evolution of human
sociality, its cognitive, emotive, and behavioral foundations. While the literature in
these fields has been exploding, here we have a most welcome integrating trans-
disciplinary work. Applying these stocks of knowledge to the foundations and
evolution of ‘markets,’ socio-economists and social scientists of all perspectives
will find how to make deeper sense of what we have used to call the social and
institutional ‘embeddedness of markets.’ A highly recommended book.”
Prof. Wolfram Elsner, University of Bremen, Germany
Our elaborate market exchange system owes its existence not to our calcu-
lating brain or insatiable self-centeredness, but rather to our sophisticated
and nuanced human sociality and to the inherent rationality built into our
emotions. The modern economic system is helped a lot more than hin-
dered by our innate social instincts that support our remarkable capacity
for building formal and informal institutions.
The book integrates the growing body of experimental evidence on
human nature scattered across a variety of disciplines from experimental
economics to social neuroscience into a coherent and original narrative
about the extent to which market (or impersonal exchange) relations are
reflective of the basic human sociality that was originally adapted to a
more tribal existence.
An accessible resource, this book will appeal to students of all areas
of economics, including Behavioral Economics and Neuro-Economics,
Microeconomics, and Political Economy.
Rojhat Avşar is an associate professor of economics at Columbia College
Chicago. His research and teaching interests include social behavior, ethi-
cal norms, economic discourse, origin of human institutions, and political
economy.
,Economics as Social Theory
Series edited by Tony Lawson
University of Cambridge
Social theory is experiencing something of a revival within economics.
Critical analyses of the particular nature of the subject matter of social
studies and of the types of method, categories, and modes of explana-
tion that can legitimately be endorsed for the scientific study of social
objects, are re-emerging. Economists are again addressing such issues as
the relationship between agency and structure, between economy and
the rest of society, and between the enquirer and the object of enquiry.
There is a r enewed interest in elaborating basic categories such as causa-
tion, competition, culture, discrimination, evolution, money, need, order,
organization, power probability, process, rationality, technology, time,
truth, uncertainty, value, etc.
The objective for this series is to facilitate this revival further. In contem-
porary economics the label “theory” has been appropriated by a group
that confines itself to largely asocial, ahistorical, mathematical “modeling.”
Economics as social theory thus reclaims the “Theory” label, offering a
platform for alternative rigorous, but broader and more critical conceptions
of theorizing.
48. Keynes Against Capitalism
His Economic Case for Liberal Socialism
James Crotty
49. The Nature of Social Reality
Issues in Social Ontology
Tony Lawson
50. The Evolutionary Origins of Markets
How Evolution, Psychology, and Biology Have Shaped the Economy
Rojhat Avşar
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Economics-as-Social-Theory/book-series/EAST
, The Evolutionary Origins of
Markets
How Evolution, Psychology, and
Biology Have Shaped the Economy
Rojhat Avşar
