Does Evolution mean Capitalism?

[The Vegan Marxist]

A question that a lot of pro-capitalist / scientific thinkers ask is 'doesn't evolution mean that capitalism is a working theory? They ask me this because of my pro-communist views, & yet known for my absolute belief in evolution. And I've tried convincing people that the process of evolution doesn't mean that economics works the same way, & I've been able to convince some when I explain the reasoning behind so, but then there are many others that feel that evolution is not only the evidence that man came from other species, which is what created them & not God, but also evidence that capitalism works. So I'm asking all of you, what do you feel is an answer to this question?

[which doctor]

You can't apply the theory of evolution to human social history. They're two entirely different domains. At the very base of evolution is genetic code, and the degree to which it varies. Human history is not determined by genetic code, but by humans themselves, but of course not in conditions of their own choosing.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I'm not talking about the genetics, but rather the theory of competing to advance, which is what evolution bases itself under, as capitalism bases itself on that same principle.

[Robocommie]

Trying to apply evolution to human society ends up developing into social darwinism, and that's one of the most monstrous evils produced by the 19th and 20th centuries. It directly contributed to the Holocaust, not to mention the sterilizations of probably countless numbers of people worldwide, and a whole host of other racist atrocities that I can't even list here.


I'm not talking about the genetics, but rather the theory of competing to advance, which is what evolution bases itself under, as capitalism bases itself on that same principle.

But isn't evolution just as much about adapting to change, moreso than any kind of "competition to advance"? After all, species do not "advance" in evolution, they adapt to fit the present circumstances, or they leave an area or die out. Species in nature tend to fall into a sort of equilibrium, lions predate on gazelle and hyenas then get to pick from the carcassses, but the two do not compete, in fact they have adapted to complementary roles.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Trying to apply evolution to human society ends up developing into social darwinism, and that's one of the most monstrous evils produced by the 19th and 20th centuries. It directly contributed to the Holocaust, not to mention the sterilizations of probably countless numbers of people worldwide, and a whole host of other racist atrocities that I can't even list here.

I agree with you, but my question to you is does evolution prove a workable theory for economics as well? My answer is of course no, but I'd like to know others opinions on this idea.

[Kléber]

Actually it was Marx who applied to human history the same scientific analysis Darwin did to biological history as a whole. Marx found that social forms "evolve" if you will, and create the conditions for new systems to arise through revolutions.

Nobody who applies Darwinism to economics is arguing intelligently. So you can bend logic as much as you want at that point. Say "the dinosaurs seemed invincible but they collapsed due to their own strength, they evolved to be so huge in an environment of plenty, but they couldn't survive in a scarcity environment post-meteor impact, they died and squirrels triumphed; likewise, corporations and banks seem invincible, they've grown 'too big to fail,' but their own vicious capacity to amass wealth will be their downfall, because they've greedily taken all the money and unbalanced the economy so the working-class has no more buying power so nobody can afford their shit anymore leading to economic collapse." (And revolution if we have a well organized vanguard xD)

[mikelepore]

Evolution is based on personal characteristics. The status of the capitalist isn't derived from any personal charcateristics, but based on two things primarily: 1. inheritance (for example the wealthy Kennedys are the descendents of a man who got wealthy as a prohibition-era whiskey runner); 2. luck (for example, Colonel Sanders made a correct guess that consumers would respond to a chain of fried chicken restaurants). There is no evidence of any organism-based characteristics involved there.

Evolution requires that the organism itself have some feature, like when the peppered moth evolved its camouflage spots, it had to personally have those spots on itself --not be the legal owner of a stock certificate that it keeps in filing cabinet.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Great answers, really. One thing though about evolution is that it's a sexual adaptation to create such evolutionary advancement. When put into the sight of danger, & a certain known lack of successfully defending yourself against such danger, all animals alike, & this is including humans for we are animals as well, merely mate to give off a certain advancement in trying to overcome the lack of ability you may possess.

[Nolan]

I've heard that the Marxist theory of class struggle is wrong because evolution implies individual competition.

Well, Darwinism implies nothing about class, so it can't imply anything about class struggle.

[Comrade_Stalin]

While this may be off topic I found online "How physics is validating the Labor Theory of value". So using other system like evolution are no to much off base.

[Tiktaalik]

Evolution by means of natural selection means that the most adaptable (by means of random mutation and independent assortment during recombination) organisms survive. It does not mean "survival of the fittest" in the sense that most people know "fitness", it means "survival of the fittest" in a biological sense; that is, fitness is defined as the ability for an organism to survive to the point of creating viable progeny.

Competition AND cooperation are integral elements of natural selection. Animals (and other organisms) do aid other organisms in their quest for survival, this is documented. Humans are a prime example of this. Humans are extremely poor animals in the wild and this is why humans band together, as well as develop various levels of horticulture. The extent of which the cooperation/competition dynamic exists within human societies varies, but in the end, no human society can exist without cooperation.

You should def read Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution". It is a legitimate biology book, even those biologists who critique it still agree that the basic argument is correct and is a completely valid scientific argument.

[Tatarin]

Actually, mine and probably every one's else experience with human society have shown people to be cooperative rather than competitive. From family to friends to relationships, if we would really be competitive in that way, the most logical would be to terminate disabled people, never give to anyone who needs, and never even borrow money. Secondly, evolution happens in a long time, and results can often not be seen for thousands of years.

Also, as mentioned above, capitalism does not live in symbiosis to it's environment. It doesn't care that the poorer gets more poor, turns to criminality or underground movements. It wants money now. It doesn't care for the natural environment, even though the same environment makes it even possible for this or that company to exist. There is no breaks for these companies. If there wouldn't be any resistance at all, I doubt the air would be breathable today.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It is a misnomer to say that humans cannot be competitive under Socialism.

In all honesty, most workers under Capitalism do not go about their day jobs with 'beating the rival company' in mind. Competition is just one of these Capitalist buzz-words that is spread around because it sounds airy-fairy and sort of acceptable, like those who bandy about 'democracy', 'human rights' and such, yet have no real inclination of the true meaning or realisation of such concepts.

Just because competition will not exist in the workplace (which will not make a huge difference for the majority of workers who do not actively 'compete' with workers from a rival company, of this I am pretty sure), it does not mean that healthy competition will not exist in society; in formal settings such as sport, workplace democracy and targets, and informal every day situations. The point here is that humans will still be competitive creatures, and thus evolution will still occur, as we will compete to find the best way to complete a given task, whether we are competing with another 'company' under Capitalism or with other workers to find the best solution to a workplace problem, rather than compete in terms of wage labour, is simply not the point.

[mikelepore]

"survival of the fittest" in a biological sense; that is, fitness is defined as the ability for an organism to survive to the point of creating viable progeny.

In addition to the ability to survive, any inherited characteristic that alters the probability of passing on genetic information. For example, features that attract mates, such as colors of bird feathers, and features that assist the reproduction process, like the iridescence of flower petals that attracts bees which transport pollen.

[mikelepore]

Can the original question be reworded? I don't understand the question. Was someone heard to claim that capitalists are biologically superior people, or that economic competition is a form of selection of biologically superior people, or that capitalists will increasingly dominate the gene pool in the future while non-capitalists become extinct -- or exactly what claim is being answered? The phrases about "capitalism works", "capitalism is a working theory", leave me without an understanding of the question.

[cska]

Yup. Capitalism works just as well as evolution does. It means that exploiters make more money and get ahead in life, just as rapists get to pass on their genes better. That doesn't make either system right. Darwin himself thought survival of the fittest was something that civilised society should leave behind, like everything else that our barbaric ancestors did.

[Spencer]

To be honest I think you're on to a loser if you want to argue that evolution (as far as Darwin interpreted it) doesn't support capitalism.


For example, in “The Pure Society”, the author, Andre Pichot makes the point that:



Contrary to appearances, social Darwinism is not simply the importation of a biological doctrine into sociology. It was Darwinian biology that had previously imported into biology a sociological doctrine (that of bourgeois political economy, as Dumont explains)...


...Darwin himself recognized that his theory was at least in part the transposition into biology of principles drawn from sociology and economics; he refers explicitly to Malthus.


and quotes Marx:



It is remarkable how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, 'inventions', and the Malthusian 'struggle for existence'.

The beginning of the quote by Dumont mentioned above reads:


What though is the moral doctrine that is rigorously implied by transformism? It is quite simply political economy, which has never to our knowledge passed as an enemy of the social order. Darwin himself declared, on many occasions, that all he did was extend to the origin of species the theories of the economists, and that his views had been particularly suggested to him by the reading of Malthus. If the conservative party were rather less blind, it would recognize that the theory of evolution bears within it the very philosophy of conservative doctrine, and that it alone can provide a scientific justification of this.

I've only finished the first section but so far I'd say the book is well worth a read.

Also, from “Kropotkin Was No Crackpot” by Stephen Jay Gould:



For example, N. I. Danilevsky, an expert on fisheries and population dynamics, published a large, two-volume critique of Darwinism in 1885. He identified struggle for personal gain as the credo of a distinctly British “national type,” as contrasted with old Slavic values of collectivism. An English child, he writes, “boxes one on one, not in a group as we Russians like to spar.” Danilevsky viewed Darwinian competition as “a purely English doctrine” founded upon a line of British thought stretching from Hobbes through Adam Smith to Malthus. Natural selection, he wrote, is rooted in “the war of all against all, now termed the struggle for existence – Hobbes’ theory of politics; on competition – the economic theory of Adam Smith. ... Malthus applied the very same principle to the problem of population. ... Darwin extended both Malthus’ partial theory and the general theory of the political economists to the organic world.” (Quotes are from Todes’s article.)



Given that much of the original inspiration for the framework for viewing evolution was imported from the values of 'bourgeois political economy' it's little wonder that someone might look at nature and see it in accord with modern society.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The the misapplication of evolution as an explanation of human society is pretty old and the best known example is Social-Darwinism which argued that social inequality was the result of social "survival of the fittest.

First of all as other people have suggested, human society is not under the same pressures that most other animals face. Human society is dynamic and very adaptable and the fact that humans can change their relationship to their environment (use clothes, build shelter) and use technology to survive where a naked human alone could not survive the elements, places humans society somewhat outside many of the normal evolutionary factors. In nature the royals and most of the old aristocracy would have died off because of their fucking uselessness, but feudal society was constructed to allow people who do not produce their own food and clothes to survive:laugh:

Second, this idea of "survival of the fittest" in economics is based on a misunderstanding of evolution as only happening from species battling each-other and the stronger ones living to reproduce while the weaker ones die-off. In nature cooperative evolution is pretty common and extinction is probably more often caused by a species being over-specialized rather than being weak and eaten (or not being able to compete for food as well as the competition) by "better" animals.

Third, if they are talking about evolution in terms of capitalism being more "fit" than feudalism and so the "unfit" order died out... well this is a totally a-historical way to look at the development of these systems. Feudalism didn't die out anywhere, it had to be forced out of existence because the struggle wasn't one of the outmoded vs. the new and more fit system, it was a battle of different ways of organizing society. In fact in many places feudalism won over capitalism for a very long time (and even flourished and grew in power... in a feudal sort of way), so there is no "natural" development of these systems, it is the result of class struggle.

[mikelepore]

"Any moron, by virtue of ownership, can be a capitalist."

-- Arnold Petersen, former national secretary of the Socialist Labor Party of America

(Source: the pamphlet "Daniel De Leon: Social Scientist" by Arnold Petersen, 1945)