The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future

The Myth of the Free Market

64 4 THE MYTH OF THE FREE MARKET The Loss of Diversity and Democracy “It is time for parents to teach young people that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” —Maya Angelou1 Self-Organization As they grow, all biological systems increase their complexity , their parts becoming ever more specialized and tightly integrated.As a result the entire system increases its efficient use of material and energy resources, with every byproduct becoming a useful resource for some other biological entity. Self-organization is key to the sustainability of all biological systems. Coevolution and Specialization In January of 1998 I had the opportunity to co-lead a coral reef ecology trip to the Florida Keys. Coral reefs were an entirely new ecosystem for me and prior to the trip demanded a good amount of research on the various species of fish, corals, and other invertebrates that we would encounter. I also had to become a certified diver. My daughter Kelsey, who was The Loss of Diversity and Democracy 65 seventeen at the time, got her certification along with me, and we became diving buddies for the trip. I will never forget our first dive within those glorious corridors of coral.The variety of forms and colors of corals and fish were astounding . Even more compelling was how all these species managed to coexist. Each species of fish was specialized to inhabit a particular part of the reef and had evolved a specific means of foraging to avoid direct competition with other species for food.These fish exhibited small, specialized niches. In this case a niche isn’t a physical place, such as a small cavity in the coral, but rather an ecological concept that is defined as a species’ ecological role.A species’ niche involves the totality of its interactions with both the biotic and abiotic components of its ecosystem. It even includes all of a species’ behaviors and adaptations.The niche is so all-encompassing that it would be impossible to define it for any organism. Rather than trying to describe a species’ niche, ecologists focus on its subsets, like the foraging niche.We are also interested in the dynamics of how niches change—whether they get more expansive or shrink. Through time, most species’ niches grow smaller as organisms become more specialized.This is driven by coevolution , a process where species adapt to each other. Outside our kitchen window we have a bird feeder that consistently attracts two species of birds whose niches overlap quite a bit— the black-capped chickadee and the white-breasted nuthatch. Their niches overlap because they live in the same forests and, when they don’t have access to a bird feeder, they glean insects off the same trees.They even look similar, with white breasts, gray backs, and black crowns.To reduce direct competition for food, they have specialized in the parts of the tree where they feed, decreasing the size of their foraging niche. THE MYTH OF THE FREE MARKET 66 Nuthatches forage on the trunk of the tree while chickadees work the branches.As a result they have developed different beak, foot, and wing morphologies. Nuthatches have a very long back toe and claw. This allows them to “walk” down a tree’s trunk. By lifting the back claw they drop a short distance only to stop their descent when they lower the claw to catch the bark. Their much longer beak then gives them the ability to probe bark fissures that chickadees can’t access.The chickadee has smaller, rounded wings that allow for short bursts of hovering flight at the ends of branches, where their small beaks glean insects from twigs and leaves. Through these coevolved specializations, chickadees and nuthatches have reduced their competition for food so that they can coexist more successfully. Competition in nature is quite a bit different than it is in human endeavors. In the natural world species don’t seek competition, and more importantly no winners emerge from its struggles. Although an individual or a species may prevail from a competitive interaction, they lose energy during the competition. As a result more energy is lost than if the competitive interaction had never occurred, so they can’t be considered winners. Because of energy losses, species move away from competition through time. This is accomplished through the coevolution of specializations that reduce the nature of the competition, such as dividing the...