It doesn't matter whether it's a machine or an ecosystem, an economy is an interaction of parts. Some parts function independantly of each other and can be measured by probability and some are dependant on each other and are measured by chaos.

The problem with the book you are quoting is it tells only half the story, at least in the preface. Yes capitalism does spring up naturally but so does socialism. He implies the ecosystem is stable because it is capitalism but this is completely wrong.

In fact the ecosystem represents a balance of capitalism and socialism. There are two basic kinds of animals, the plant eaters and the carnivores. The carnivores live off the plant eaters and represent the capitalist instince for profit. The plant eaters are communal and represent socialism.

Lions for example hunt singly or in packs and if left unchecked can destroy themselves by overeating and starving. This is the catastrophic decline caused by over competition between carnivores.

The plant eaters, or cattle for example evolve through resisting predators and they do this by strength in numbers. Lookouts see predators and alert the rest of them. If attacked by staying close like a convoy the predators can only hurt the outer ones. So this evolves lookouts protecting the others which is like regulations protecting the unwary consumer.

In the same way unions evolve to protect themselves from predatory capitalists by their strength of numbers. You can't hurt a union because you can't pick them off one by one.

Lions don't like the herd instinct and capitalists don't like unions. The balance is achieved when neither predator or prey dominates. If the prey is too successful they overbreed and starve themselves. if the predator is too successful he kills too many and starves.

This feedback mechanism runs all ecosystems and all economies. People who want to profit if they make too much find that the consumers don't have enough money left and so they starve themselves by creating a recession. This is happening now because the rich have so much there is little to get from the consumer to keep the system running.

If capitalism is too regtulated the consumer ends up with plenty of money and nothing to buy with it, like what happened in the Soviet Union for example. The situation becomes ripe for capitalist to make goods and profit from their sale, the equivalent of lions attacking cattle. Probably a better anlogy is shearing sheep as the prey is not killed.

Nonetheless the two systems must remain inblance for overall prosperity. If the lions decide the cattle are morally treasonous to herd together and have their own protections against them then the whole system collapses. Also if the cattle decide they can do without the predators then they also starve.