There’s a really good thumb-sucker piece on the intersection of economics, political science, and psychology over at Gene Expression. Bottom line: Capitalism’s great, but we’re not well adapted to it.

We obviously are not adapted to hunter-gatherer existence in these domains — we would cut down the status-seekers or cast them out right away, rather than tolerate them and even work for them. At the same time, we evidently haven’t had enough generations to adapt to markets and governments that are both open and competitive. That is certain to pull our intuitions in certain directions, particularly toward a distrust of market-dominating firms and toward advising businesses to pursue popularity and influence more than profitability . . .