"No man ever steps in the same water twice," said Heraclitus, "for it's not the same

river
and he's not the same man." He was one notable name among many ancient
philosophers who perceived the world in a constant phase of becoming. However
Enlightenment put an end to the cohesion between science and philosophy, and
especially after Descartes, the main tendency in sciences was to isolate a certain part of
the subject matter and try to describe it in a very precise way. It was an irreversible
breakthrough in social sciences when an English naturalist called Charles Darwin
published his famous title "The Origin of Species" in 1859. Until then, biology was rather
busy with distinguishing, describing and classifying species, when Darwin focused
instead on the overall characteristic of all living things: That they change, and can only
survive if they change. Darwin pointed to this as the driving force behind the existence of
such a variety of species. Nobody could survive in this changing world without adapting.
There was constant clash, competition and evolution. Darwin's work not only changed
natural sciences, but also social and behavioral sciences like economy. Evolutionary
economists; such as Marx, Veblen and Schumpeter integrated the idea of change into
their analyses.
Two important figures of his day, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were amazed to see
how much his theory had in common with their historical materialist perspective of social
history. Many critics say that after reading The Origin of Species Marx further developed
his theories of economics and was the first to apply the notion of change to the field of
economics. Before, classical economy was marked by Adam Smith's thoughts based on
the so-called "rational individual" and David Ricardo's abstract models based on
ahistorical assumptions. These forerunners of the field tried to explain the nature of
capitalism based on the assumption that the said system drew its strength from its
unshakable stability and rationality. Marx on the other hand, perceived capitalism as
something in a phase of becoming. Like a bicycle, it could not stand still but collapse
right away. It could only resist collapsing if it went on moving. To go on, it had to change
and adapt itself to the ever changing circumstances. Actually he built all his theory on
the claim that certain social classes tried to make their economic model reign and the
history itself was driven by the clashes between classes. He claimed that although
capitalism was a very adaptive system, it did not have many chances to survive in the
long run.
According to Thornstein Veblen the ability of capitalism to adapt was due to the fact that
it was organized through institutions. What we will gain if we replace unit of analyses
with institutions? According to Veblen, institutions are open to change, think about
capitalist firms. Institutions also have advantage over rational and irrational individuals,
because institutions life much longer than them. So their survival skills are much more.
They can be observed in the long term.
Joseph Schumpeter said capitalism ironically drew its strength from the fact that it was
not a stable system, and that to the contrary it was constantly prone to changes. He said

that unlike previous economical systems, capitalism was inherently dynamic which made
it stronger and more durable than the others.