Editing Jane Jacobs (section)

=== ''The Nature of Economies'' ===
''The Nature of Economies'' (2000), a dialog between friends concerning the premise: "human beings exist wholly within nature as part of the natural order in every respect" (p. ''ix''), argues that the same principles underlie both [[ecosystem]]s and [[economic system|economies]]: "development and co-development through differentiation and their combinations; expansion through diverse, multiple uses of energy; and self-maintenance through self-refueling" (p.&nbsp;82). Jacobs also comments on the nature of economic and biological diversity and its role in the development and growth of the two kinds of systems.

Jacobs's characters discuss the four methods by which "dynamically stable systems" may evade collapse: "bifurcations; [[positive feedback|positive-feedback loops]]; [[negative feedback|negative-feedback controls]]; and emergency adaptations" (p.&nbsp;86). Their conversations also cover the "double nature of fitness for survival" (traits to avoid destroying one's own habitat as well as success in competition to feed and breed, p.&nbsp;119), and unpredictability including the [[butterfly effect]] characterized in terms of multiplicity of variables as well as disproportional response to cause, and [[self-organization]] where "a system can be making itself up as it goes along" (p.&nbsp;137).

The book is infused with many real-world economic and biological examples, which help keep the book "down to earth" and comprehensible, if dense. Concepts are furnished with both economic and biological examples, showing their coherence in both worlds.

One particularly interesting insight is the creation of "something from nothing" – an economy from nowhere. In the biological world, free energy is given through sunlight, but in the economic world human creativity and natural resources supply this free energy, or at least starter energy. Another interesting insight is the creation of economic diversity through the combination of different technologies, for example the typewriter and television as inputs and outputs of a computer system: this can lead to the creation of "new species of work".