Punctuated Equilibrium and the Validation of Macroevolutionary Theory 965
within a highly technological matrix. Yet capitalism now faces a crisis of
reorganization in a world where major change (both natural and social) occurs by
punctuated equilibrium and not by slow incrementation. Thurow therefore presents
two metaphors from the natural sciences to ground his argument: "To understand
the dynamics of this new economic world, it is useful to borrow two concepts from
the physical sciences—plate tectonics from geology and punctuated equilibrium
from biology" (p. 6).
In an obviously imagistic metaphor with no causal meaning, Thurow
identifies the five "economic tectonic plates" that will incite the next punctuation
by crunching and grinding as their rigid borders crash: "the end of communism,"
"the technological shift to an era dominated by man-made brainpower industries,"
"a demography never before seen" (increasing average age, greater movement of
populations to cities, etc.), "a global economy," and "an era where there is no
dominant economic, political or military power" (pp. 8-9).
But his invocation of punctuated equilibrium shows more structural and
causal connection to the "parent" phenomenon from the natural sciences. Thurow
(p. 7) notes both the long plateaus and the tendency for rapid historical shifts in
transitions between macroeconomic systems that organize entire societies:
Periods of punctuated equilibrium are equally visible in human history.
Although they came almost two thousand years later, Napoleon's armies
could move no faster than those of Julius Caesar—both depended upon
horses and carts. But seventy years after Napoleon's death, steam trains
could reach speeds of over 112 miles per hour. The industrial revolution
was well under way and the economic era of agriculture, thousands of years
old, was in less than a century replaced by the industrial age. A survival-of-
the-fittest social system, feudalism that had lasted for hundred of years
were quickly replaced by capitalism.More notably, and marking Thurow's fruitful use, he stresses important
conjoints of punctuated equilibrium as the most relevant—and practical— themes
for our current and dangerous situation. First, the common phenotype of
punctuation leads him to recognize that general structural rules must underlie both
the maintenance of stasis and, through their fracturing, the episodes of punctuation
as well. The rules will differ in social and natural systems, but the general principle
applies across domains. Thurow argues that stasis requires a meshing of
technology and ideology, while their radical divergence initiates punctuation, a
situation that we face today. (Marx, in an entirely different context, held a similar
view about both the character of the rule and the punctuational outcome.)
Technology and ideology are shaking the foundations of twenty-first-
century capitalism. Technology is making skills and knowledge the only
sources of sustainable strategic advantage. Abetted by the electronic media,
ideology is moving toward a radical form of short-run individual