Symbiosis
Typology
Lehman Scott:
"There are actually six different types of symbiosis found in Nature, as follows:
- Mutualistic: Both organisms benefit from the relationship
- Commensal: One organism benefits from the relationship with no net effect on the other
- Neutral: Relationship between the two organisms has no net effect on either
- Amensal: One organism is negatively affected from the relationship with no net effect on the other
- Parasitic: One organism benefits to the detriment of the other
- Synnecristic: Both organisms are negatively affected by the relationship "
(http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/24/1301731/-Into-the-Wilds-of-a-New-Economic-Paradigm)\
Graphic at http://images.dailykos.com/images/86111/large/secf_section_no_cap.jpg?1401232878
Domains of Application
Symbiosis in Economics
Quoted [1]?? by Lehman Scott in the context of Symbiotic Economics:
* Article: Towards a Reconsideration of Social Evolution: ?Symbiosis and Its Implications for Economics . John P. Watkins. Journal of Economic Issues Vol. 32, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 87-105 [2]
"?Renewed interest among economists in naturalist Charles Darwin's theory has generated confusion regarding the meaning of social evolution. The debate between the old institutional and neoclassical economists finds a parallel in a debate that has recently emerged among biologists. Recent research in biology, however, cast doubts about the simplistic vision of evolution presented by the neo-Darwinists. The theory of symbiosis in particular makes two points. First, evolution is not always gradual. New species may arise from the merging of two or more species. Second, evolution may also result from "cooperation." The symbiotic theory focuses not on the individual organism as the unit of "selection," but on the relationships that in fact define the "individual" organism. Historians of biological science trace the origins of modern symbiosis theory to the reaction on the part of socialists and anarchists to the emergence of the market economy in the nineteenth century. For years, biologists studying symbiosis were excluded from "polite biological society." Their theories were either dismissed or met with open hostility. The "market mentality" underlying the neo-Darwinian synthesis led biologists to look for conflict."
Discussion
Kropotkin on Mutualism
Kropotkin, in his book, Mutual Aid, "described the concept of mutualism, and what is now known in the natural sciences as Symbiosis:
A soon as we study animals — not in laboratories and museums only, but in the forest and prairie, in the steppe and in the mountains — we at once perceive that though there is an immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst various species, and especially amidst various classes of animals, there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defence amidst animals belonging to the same species or, at least, to the same society. Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle. Of course it would be extremely difficult to estimate, however roughly, the relative numerical importance of both these series of facts. But if we resort to an indirect test, and ask Nature: "Who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?" we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development and bodily organization. If the numberless facts which can be brought forward to support this view are taken into account, we may safely say that mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle; but that as a factor of evolution, it most probably has a far greater importance, inasmuch as it favors the development of such habits and characters as insure the maintenance and further development of the species, together with the greatest amount of welfare and enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least waste of energy." (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/24/1301731/-Into-the-Wilds-of-a-New-Economic-Paradigm)
More Information
Lehman Scott:
- "For the reader interested in the fascinating history of symbiosis in this regard, I recommend Jan Sapp’s 1994 book Evolution by Association: A History of Symbiosis.
- The natural sciences eventually came to accept symbiosis as a not-insignificant part of evolution after Lynn Margulis’ (of Gaia Hypothesis fame) groundbreaking work on endosymbiosis was published in 1966 (after 15 journal rejections!). Since then, the scientific study of symbiosis has increased substantially, and it has become apparent that it plays a very significant role in nearly every ecosystem on the planet."
(http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/24/1301731/-Into-the-Wilds-of-a-New-Economic-Paradigm)