Culture Eats Strategy

Biological Parallel

When biologists transplant cleaner wrasse fish from cooperative reef communities to aggressive ones, the fish adopt local behavioral norms within days—abandoning their evolved cleaning strategy for the dominant culture of cheating and exploitation. Similarly, cooperative chickens placed in hypercompetitive flocks suppress their prosocial traits. Culture (local behavioral norms reinforced by social learning) overrides individual strategy because organisms that violate group norms face ostracism. Drucker observed the same dominance hierarchy: cultural gravity bends strategic intent.