Evolution

[anarcho-communist4]

Today in my anthro class my professor was talking a bout evolution. One part that really intrigued me was that he said "The more altruistic humans survived while the more competitive died out."

Now to my question, in a capitalist system people need to compete to survive, and on massive scales. And looking at what my professor said, wouldn't capitalism been un-natural and against our evolutionary traits that helped us survive?
am i completely off base here?

[Tim Cornelis]

inb4 historical materialism

[anarcho-communist4]

inb4 historical materialism

I would like a real answer so i could LEARN hence this part of the forum...
Even if the answer says im wrong i would appreciate it.

[The Jay]

I'd say that an anthro prof. isn't qualified to analyse behavior as an evolutionary effect ;)

[anarcho-communist4]

I'd say that an anthro prof. isn't qualified to analyse behavior as an evolutionary effect ;)

Hes also an evolutionary Biologist, the guy has a ludicrous ammount of degrees.
Reason im asking you guys to see if it its applicable to social conditions and our economic conditions.

[Winkers Fons]

Nothing that people do is "unnatural" or against our biological traits or else we wouldn't do it. Capitalism rose out of the collapse of the feudalistic system that preceded it. There are many factors that caused its rise but the main one is the collapse of the obligatory relationship between serfs and lords and the rise of contractual labor.

If you have not already, try reading some Marx because the rise and fall of systems of production is one of the primary subjects of his work.

[anarcho-communist4]

Nothing that people do is "unnatural" or against our biological traits or else we wouldn't do it. Capitalism rose out of the collapse of the feudalistic system that preceded it. There are many factors that caused its rise but the main one is the collapse of the obligatory relationship between serfs and lords and the rise of contractual labor.

If you have not already, try reading some Marx because the rise and fall of systems of production is one of the primary subjects of his work.

What im asking is, is capitalism go against our evolutionary traits, not how capitalism came about.. i've read enough marx.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

During prehistoric times (that is, before the development of written language), human hunter-gatherer populations basically lived in what can be called "primitive communism." There was no state and no social classes. People had to work together to survive and because there were vast uninhabited areas, people in those times would have had much less impulse to compete with other groups of humans over resources, since they could just migrate to another area. It has only been relatively recently (the last 10,000 years or so) through the development of agriculture and industry that social classes and the state emerged and people have been adapting to those new influences on our environment. Nevertheless, since evolutionary change is a very gradual process, the millions of years our ancestors spent living under early communism has inclined modern humans more towards the cooperative model of living than towards the competitive. In that sense IMO, capitalism is basically an "unnatural" system, just as warfare is unnatural, which is why people must be dehumanized and programmed before they participate in both war and capitalism, in order to "unlearn" and cast aside their natural instincts which are not to go out of one's way to screw other people over but to help them out.

[Rafiq]

Your professor isn't trying to be a mutualist or any of that bullshit. The humans that organized and formed a means of communication and exchange are the ones that survived, while the aggressive and 'individualistic' humans died out. That doesn't mean that any of them were altruistic, though.

Captialism in this sense is not the same, because it's a very 'cooperative' system, humans are together, exchanging and organizing themselves in a manner that involves all of them, no matter how odd we deem that organization is.

Humans are not naturally cooperative and altruistic people. Humans are all motivate by self-interest, however, we realize that the only way that all of us bastards can feel satisfied is if we organize ourselves and adjust ourselves to a system that is more efficient than Capitalism.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Your professor isn't trying to be a mutualist or any of that bullshit. The humans that organized and formed a means of communication and exchange are the ones that survived, while the aggressive and 'individualistic' humans died out. That doesn't mean that any of them were altruistic, though.

Captialism in this sense is not the same, because it's a very 'cooperative' system, humans are together, exchanging and organizing themselves in a manner that involves all of them, no matter how odd we deem that organization is.

Humans are not naturally cooperative and altruistic people. Humans are all motivate by self-interest, however, we realize that the only way that all of us bastards can feel satisfied is if we organize ourselves and adjust ourselves to a system that is more efficient than Capitalism.

If humans are all motivated by self-interest, why do people sacrifice themselves for others? Are suicide bombers an unnatural phenomenon?

It's interesting that anthropologists have observed altruistic traits in monkeys:
A primate example of altruism: Vervet monkeys emit alarm calls when they see a predator. This allows their fellow monkeys to avoid the predator. However, alarm-calling is costly: the predator will spot and try to kill the monkey giving the alarm. If this cooperative gesture is risky, and if monkeys are vehicles perpetuating genes, why do vervets call?

Recall that in most primate species, females remain together in their birth group. Males move from their birth group into a new group (exception: humans and chimps). That means that in most primate groups, including vervets, females will be closely related, adult males distantly related. Females are more likely to emit alarm calls than males. Why? Because by being altruistic—warning others of predators—females help relatives. By doing so, they promote copies of their genes.

http://web.missouri.edu/~flinnm/courses/mah/lectures/evol_cont.htm (http://web.missouri.edu/%7Eflinnm/courses/mah/lectures/evol_cont.htm)
If a soldier jumps on a grenade and "takes one for the team," they save the lives of their comrades. Since the altruistic soldier sacrificed themself, their comrades will be able to reproduce. For the sake of this example, let's say the soldiers are fighting in a war between two populations which were previously isolated from each other. The soldiers from population 1 are more genetically similar than they are to population 2, so by sacrificing themself in order to save the others, the soldier is promoting their own fitness by allowing for more reproduction of copies of that soldier's genes, which are shared by the other soldiers who were saved.

So selfless interest in the well-being of others could actually promote evolutionary fitness. Certainly capitalism is threatening to wipe out our species either through nuclear warfare, catastrophic climate change, or some other means. Proletarians should support communism not just out of material self-interest, but out of an understanding of the need to permanently abolish all forms of inequality and oppression (which must come from a sense of altruism). Bourgeois people should also support communism after seeing the destructive nature of advanced capitalism, even if it will mean less privileges for them. Ultimately though I guess if you consider humanity (or even all life on Earth) as one being, you could say it is in our collective self-interest to abolish capitalism and we should be motivated by that.

[Oswy]

Today in my anthro class my professor was talking a bout evolution. One part that really intrigued me was that he said "The more altruistic humans survived while the more competitive died out."

Now to my question, in a capitalist system people need to compete to survive, and on massive scales. And looking at what my professor said, wouldn't capitalism been un-natural and against our evolutionary traits that helped us survive?
am i completely off base here?

At the very least I think a distinction needs to be made between transenvironmental generalisations about human behaviour on the one hand and the variably constructed social and economic environment their behaviour is limited and shaped by on the other.

[Q]

I humbly point to my short blogpost on it (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1654).

[anarcho-communist4]

Q; your blog is pretty much what i was thinking. I wanted to confirm that on here before i used it in an argument. And im pretty sure if i throw the word evolution around most conservatives they will back off, or just call me crazy.

[ZeroNowhere]

Capitalism is based just as much on social production as private production, as is indeed inherent in the fact that its basis is commodity exchange. It's not based on simply competition in the abstract, but competition within a social framework where people produce for others in interdependence, and through which they develop indirectly the productive powers of society as a whole. If it's based on independence, it's just as much based on interdependence.

However, where your argument could have some validity is in the case of overproduction crisis, where in actual fact this dual independent and interdependent nature of capitalist production comes into conflict, and where independent companies find that they can only actually by independent through interdependence; that is, they can only realize their product for their private ends through selling them to others, and having them bought. In humans, it is, one could say naturally, the case that co-operative labour is more productive than private labour in most cases, and indeed capitalist production arose in large part due to the fact that it was based on co-operation in the labour process. However, capitalism still retains a private nature which comes into conflict with this development of the productive power, and leads to its supercession to create a system of directly social production. How 'natural' this is depends on how you want to use the word, but nonetheless it is a similar principle, namely that labour which is co-operative (in various senses, including even the division of labour, where various people worked towards social needs) is more productive, labour being man's natural basis of life.

[MarxSchmarx]

Zeronowhere makes a good point - capitalism can be cooperative, in a strange sort of way. People do compete over resources, but they require some degree of coordination and mutual understanding at least internally within their organizations for the system to work.


inb4 historical materialism

Please refrain from posts like this. This isn't a formal warning or anything but it's lame.