Market failures in Adam Smith’s framework occur only when competition is limited. The Darwinian framework, in contrast, holds that market failures can occur even when everyone has taken full advantage of all available opportunities for potential gain. As I explain in The Darwin Economy, simple, non-intrusive changes in tax policy can free up trillions of dollars annually that are currently wasted in mutually offsetting spending patterns.Darwin’s view of the competitive process will prevail over Smith’s in the end because it offers a far more parsimonious explanation of the behavior patterns we observe. We are, after all, not stick figures seeking only to consume more and more, but emotional beings strongly attached to and affected by our relative position in society.
— Robert Frank, Charles Darwin, Economist, in: The American Interest