The ecosystem as a model for an economic system

Keywords: Competition, Cooperation, Variety, Monopoly,

Just wanted to put an idea out there that I've been considering for a few weeks, and telling to friends.

Nature is the closest thing to perfection. In fact, it might be totally perfect, and the destructive things that can occur within it might be necessary to balance it out totally. Even the pesty viruses from our common colds insert new RNA into any species it infects, adding to its evolutionary course. But it doesn't take a molecular biologist to recognize this nearness to perfection. A simple walk through the woods, or watching the discovery channel from home should be enough evidence to convince you of it. The most compelling evidence I see exists within the VARIETY of life.

But first, recognize that each plant and animal in the ecosystem competes for it's own survival. It grows tall toward the sunlight to be the highest in the canopy. Bamboo is especially clever as it releases invasive toxins that can destroy plant life around it in order for it to grow. A little unfair to the neighboring grasses, although thoroughly enjoyed by pandas. However, despite this competition, there are no monopolies, no single moss or fungus that has swept over the forest in total gluttony. Nature simply doesn't allow it. [The closest thing to a monopoly that exists, is humanity. A fact we are becoming more aware of, a fact that can potentially produce negative reprocussions if we are unable to find cooperation with our enviroment... although that topic extends beyond the scope of this blog, and I'm not enough of an environmentalist to be able to discuss it intellectually.]

But what I can say confidentally, is that we can learn from nature. Locke and Jefferson knew that a monarchy was wrong. Imagine a plant in the jungle whose roots extended to every other plant under its reign. The roots don't terminate into the soil, but into the heart of these other plans. From these plants it sucks out energy that the subordinate plant worked hard to raise up from the soil. The powerful plant then overreaches and extends over the entire jungle, monopolizing sunlight, setting darkness to the jungle floor. Nature wouldn't, and couldn't ever allow it. But we did, when we crowned a king.

If the strongest power in the world, were no more competetive than the most competetive species in the ecosystem; perhaps the bamboo reeds, then our model of humanity could parallel that of the ecosystem, and perhaps this conformational change would happen in sync with a co-existence with our ecosytem, removing potential worries regarding monopilization's effects.

Just a thought