About the “economic” origin of altruism

The principal aim of this paper is to present an evolutionary model based on a simple inequality system which shows how altruism can increase exchanges of goods and services, in order to study the conditions which can permit the emergence and prevalence of altruistic behaviors. We will show that given certain conditions, and even without considering group selection, kin selection or reciprocal altruism, altruists may have a greater probability of survival than egoists.