Abstract:
An important challenge to evolutionary economics consists of how to tackle with the
dramatic tension between purposeful human action and the ‘blindness’ of evolutionary
processes. On the one hand, economic action, if rational, has to be planned (which implies
purposeful ordering of the means used to achieve objectives). On the other hand, an
evolutionary process involves both the emergence of novelties (both intended innovations and
unintended consequences of actions) and properties that manifest at meso and macro levels.
Some recent papers have insisted on these issues. However, few analytical tools are yet
available to cope with both, the analysis of intended dynamic action and ‘blind’ evolution. In
this paper we propose the so-called ‘action plan approach’, a theoretical framework which could
be useful for this task. The development of tools that permit us to analyze how individuals
construct their plans, the projective (conjectural) and interactive nature of action, and the
learning processes involved in ‘planning and acting’, may help us identifying and understanding
new sources of complexity of economic processes. The close relationship of the ‘action plan
approach’ with other systemic conceptual approaches is also highlighted.