Why the need for Conscription? (1995)

Book Review from the August 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson (Penguin. £7.99.)

First published in 1978, this book is now available in paperback. Wilson is one of the leading proponents of the school of thought known as socio-biology. which he defines as “the scientific study of the biological basis of all forms of social behaviour in all kinds of organisms, including man." The crucial word here is ‘social’: no-one would deny that human characteristics such as walking on two legs have a biological basis, but the question is how much of the behaviour that might appear to be learned is actually inherited with our genes. The basic claim of socio-biologists is that Darwin’s mechanism of evolution through natural selection can be extended to explaining social behaviour. Darwin argued that properties (such as bigger brains) which enabled individuals to survive and reproduce more than others would inevitably spread at the cost of less advantageous variants. Socio-biology says that human socio-cultural behaviour is equally influenced by evolution, and that since for all but a few thousand years humans have lived as hunter-gatherers, the traits that were useful in such a way of life still dominate.

To take a particular example which is relevant to the case for Socialism, Wilson argues that humans are innately aggressive. In the jargon he employs, this becomes: "human beings have a marked hereditary disposition to aggressive behaviour". The evidence cited for this is that warfare has been endemic to every form of human society. Hunter- gatherers supposedly relied on warfare to defend territory and resources, so people predisposed to aggression would have had more chance of surviving and so passing on their "aggressive" genes to their offspring than other more pacific individuals. Human aggression is then seen as not simply an animal instinct, but a result of an evolution that has predisposed us to divide other people into friend and foe, to be suspicious of the actions of strangers and to solve conflict by means of aggression. War can supposedly be avoided by inculcating cross-cutting loyalties in people, so that any simple “them- us" distinction is invalid.

However, a broader look at hunter-gatherer society might, in contrast, suggest that we are genetically adapted to live in egalitarian non-market societies (not that socialists would make such a claim). There are many characteristics of hunter-gatherer societies that Wilson ignores, and that would suggest a very different picture of human beings. In any case, the argument for the innateness of aggression falls at the fact that the overwhelming majority of people don't take part in war, and that those who do usually have to be conscripted or otherwise forced to do so. And under capitalism, war is not caused by a dislike of strangers but by straightforward economic motives, motives which are in the interests only of a small ruling class, not of the majority of the population. If "Human beings are strongly predisposed to respond with unreasoning hatred to external threats", as Wilson claims, then this will be no problem in a society which is not based on such threats or competition. Even if Wilson’s explanation for aggressive behaviour were correct (and it isn’t), this would be no argument against Socialism.

Wilson describes Marxism as “socio-biology without biology.", though he does not expand on this cryptic statement The political nature of his claims is revealed more clearly in his dogmatic declaration that the anarchist society proposed by Bakunin is "biologically impossible”, but again he does not expand on this. Leaving aside the question of the kind of society that Bakunin actually advocated, the implication that a society without government is unachievable is simply nonsense. What socio-biology cannot come to grips with is the fact that human nature enables us to learn and adapt, and so transcend the limitations placed on all other creatures by their genetic endowment.

Paul Bennett

Revolution in the 21st Century (2004)

Book Review from the March 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Revolution in the 21st Century. A Rough Guide to Revolution for Academics and Activists. By Jack Grassby, TUPS book, Newcastle, 2003

This is basically an up-dated version of Jack Grassby’s previous book, A Socialist’s Guide for the 21st Century, reviewed in the July 2001 Socialist Standard. In this he sets out, mainly for politics students, the range of approaches adopted by political activists.

First, there are those who think that the present social, economic and political system  capitalism, based on class ownership of the means of production and driven by production for profit  is basically OK but needs improving in one way or another. Some want “more capitalism”, i.e. less social interference in the market and profit-making (Grassby calls them the “Anti-Socialists”) while others want to move in the direction of more communal responsibility for people (Grassby calls them the “Non-Socialists” or “social democrats” such as Blair, ex-President Clinton and the Lib Dems in Britain).

Secondly, there are those who think that the present system should be replaced by another system they call “socialism” (variously defined, but all involving social control of production). Some believe that such a new system could be introduced gradually through a series of reforms voted by a democratically-elected government (Grassby calls them the “Evolutionary Socialists” or “gradualists” or “reformists”, as exemplified by Old Labour). Then, says Grassby, there are the “Revolutionary Socialists” who argue that socialism can only be established after a decisive break during which the present ruling class are deprived of power –  a “revolution”.

Grassby divides this group into those who hold that such a revolution has to be the work of a conscious majority and can be achieved essentially peacefully by making use of existing elective institutions (he gives us as the typical, indeed the main, example) and those who hold that it has to be the work of an enlightened minority, a political vanguard, leading the workers in what will inevitably be a violent show-down with the state (here, his typical example is the SWP). He also discusses the anarchists but doesn’t classify them as a separate approach, presumably because, depending on their views, they can be fitted into one of other of the three categories above (reformists, democratic revolutionists, vanguardists).

He does, however, introduce a fourth group who he calls the “New Socialists” (even though most of them don’t call themselves socialists, “anti-capitalists” being as far as they are prepared to go): the amorphous group of those who don’t see any single alternative to capitalism but many possible alternatives, including some which retain money and markets, all of which are seen as equally valid; in fact, for them, the goal is not that important, it’s what you do now that is.

Despite the fact that they reduce “socialism”, as has the Labour Party when it pretends to have something to do with this, to “socialist values” that can be achieved within capitalism, Grassby’s sympathies go to this last group, or rather it is in them that he sees the future hope for socialism. Certainly, at the moment, this is the approach that probably most of those radically dissatisfied with the worst features of capitalism are inclined to adopt. But even he recognises that pursuing single issues is ultimately a dead-end, an endless uphill struggle like trying to run up a downward-moving escalator. And, we would add, both he and they are wrong to imagine that there are many possible alternatives to capitalism.

At this particular historical juncture, due to the productive system that has developed, there is only one possible way forward for humanity: a world-wide society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources. This is not to say that, on this basis, alternative structures are not possible. Of course they are , and no doubt in different parts of the world these structures will reflect the different traditions and preferences of the people living there. That would be a consequence of the democracy that socialism necessarily involves. Socialism is not a blueprint as to all aspects of the alternative society to capitalism, only a definition of what its basis has inevitably to be.

Grassby is over-impressed with “post-modernism” which he seems to identify with philosophical scepticism and moral relativism, but these have existed since Ancient Greek times. Post-modernism, if it is to mean anything (not that it is clear that it is), surely, must have something to do with “modernism”, i.e. the view that emerged, at the time of the Enlightenment in the 18th century the Age of Reason, that there are universal human values and which advanced the project of universal human emancipation, a project inherited by early socialists such as Marx. It is this that post-modernism rejects, and shows itself to be, not as Grassby thinks the basis for a theory of 21st century revolution, but an expression of  capitalism’s current intellectual bankruptcy.

Grassby has also been taken in by “socio-biology”, the theory of biological determinism thought up by EO Wilson, the specialist in ant behaviour. Grassby argues that “the Marxist view that the post-capitalist society will operate altruistically, without money, prices or wages, demands a uniform standard of human behaviour not consistent with the sociobiologist’s description” and “would require universally altruistic human behaviour without greed, selfishness, prejudice or power”.

It is not clear where in Marx or any other socialist writer, Grassby gets this idea that socialism requires “universally altruistic human behaviour”, i.e. that everybody should put everybody else’s interest before their own, but probably from the biological determinist opponents of socialism such as Wilson and Steven Pinker who he quotes. But in fact socialism doesn’t require everyday human behaviour to change much from what it is today, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, cooperation) at the expense of others which capitalism encourages (violence, competitiveness and acquisitiveness).

Of course humans are biologically capable of aggressive as well as non-aggressive behaviour, of being narrowly self-centred as well as of showing concern for others that’s what being biologically capable of a wide range of behaviour, a key feature of “human nature”, means. But that’s not the same as saying that humans have a “biological predisposition” (through a gene or combination of genes) for aggression, domination or greed or, for that matter, for non-violent, co-operative or altruistic behaviour. Because we are “biologically programmed” for flexible behaviour, humans are capable of both types of behaviour depending on the circumstances in which we were brought up or find ourselves in.

So, while Grassby’s book may provide some useful material for students’ essays on politics, they should be wary on relying on it for their essays on philosophy. And they are advised, if they want avoid bad marks, to refer to John Stuart Mill as “Mill” rather than “Mills”.

One further correction. Grassby says that the SPGB has “its roots in the Labour Representative Committee established in 1900” which was the forerunner of the Labour Party. This is a misunderstanding. We were a breakaway from the Social Democratic Federation which was indeed present at the 1900 conference which established the, to give it its proper name, Labour Representation Committee. But in 1901 the SDF disaffiliated from the LRC and it was after this, in 1904, that the Socialist Party broke away.  So, we have never had any links to the Labour Party.

Adam Buick

Death of a Sociobiologist (2022)

From the February 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

E. O. Wilson, the inventor of the theory of genetic determinism he called ‘sociobiology’, died on 26 December at the age of 92. He was an avowed opponent of socialism, writing in his 1978 book On Human Nature:

‘The perception of history as an inevitable class struggle proceeding to the emergence of a lightly governed egalitarian society with production in control of the workers… is based on an inaccurate interpretation of human nature’ (Penguin edition, 1995, p. 190).

Later research and findings in the field of genetics discredited the view that there were specific genes for specific behaviour patterns such as aggression or territoriality. Genes govern a person’s physical characteristics including certain cognitive facilities, and susceptibility to certain health conditions.

In her obituary in the Guardian (6 January) Georgina Ferry made the mistake of attributing to Wilson the view that his ‘sociobiology’ set out to refute. Referring to his book on human nature, she wrote:

‘Today most scientists accept, as Wilson argued, that genetically determined “human nature” includes the capacity to develop extremely flexible patterns of social behaviour under the influence of culture’.

Most scientists do indeed accept this, and did before it was challenged in the 1960s and 1970s by the likes of Konrad Lorenz and Robert Ardrey… and E.O. Wilson. Here, for instance, is what the anthropologist Alexander Allard wrote in 1972:

‘Culture is learned and shared. It is rooted in biology. But although this is true (the capacity for culture is part of a normal human’s brain structure), culture frees man to an unprecedented degree from strictly biological controls over the development and maintenance of behavioural systems. Culture is biologically adaptive. That is, human populations imbedded, like all animal populations, in specific environments adjust to these environments largely through culture’ (The Human Imperative, Columbia University Press, 1972, pp. 21-22).

The fact that a science writer like Ferry should make such an elementary mistake shows the extent that ‘sociobiology’ has been forgotten by scientists, though it may also reflect the fact that in later years Wilson redeemed himself to a certain extent by becoming a champion of biodiversity.

However, Wilson’s anti-socialism, as opposition to ‘a lightly governed egalitarian society with production in control of the workers’, still survives among pro-capitalist ideologues. In a eulogy of Wilson in The Times (5 January) Lord Finkelstein, the Tory peer, wrote:

‘Humans are animals too, after all, so our social organisation, our behaviour, our hierarchies, our urges will, to some extent at least, be the product of our biology.’

Our urges no doubt, but not our particular ‘social organisation’ beyond the fact that we are social animals and certainly not our ‘hierarchies’. These are only influenced by our biology insofar as our biology ‘includes the capacity to develop extremely flexible patterns of social behaviour’.

This does not mean that, as Finkelstein claims, that humans are a ‘blank slate’ or that all individuals are the same. As Allard put it:

‘Individuals are born different. The outcome of heredity and experience will lead to differences in temperament and ability which make it possible for the human group to function as a social entity.’

Socialists have always recognised this, as in the long-standing slogan of ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’. The equality socialism will bring is not through ‘social engineering’ somehow making everyone have the same abilities, but a society in which everyone, whatever their ability, has the same access to what they need to live and enjoy life.

Finkelstein is right on one point: that it is unfair to say, as some have done, that Wilson was a ‘racist’. He wasn’t. He was just an anti-socialist and a biological determinist.

Later in his eulogy, Finkelstein abandons ‘to some extent at least’ and boldly declares:

‘…Wilson was achingly, obviously right. How likely is it that human beings are the one species whose capacities and behaviour aren’t largely influenced by biology?’

It might perhaps have been unlikely that an animal would evolve whose behaviour was overwhelmingly influenced by the non-biological culture they created to survive, but this is precisely what did happen. It is one of the features that distinguishes humans from other animals. This is not Marxist or ‘left-wing’. It is simply the truth. To be convinced of this, Finkelstein just needs to consult any textbook on anthropology. He will find Ferry’s statement confirmed that ‘most scientists accept …. that genetically determined “human nature” includes the capacity to develop extremely flexible patterns of social behaviour under the influence of culture’.

Adam Buick

See also:

Violent genes (1979)

Fighting Human Nature (2014)

Are We Prisoners of Our Genes? (2004)

Violent genes (1979)

From the May 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sociobiology is a new science, a hybrid of sociology and biology. Harvard zoologist Edward Wilson in his latest work On Human Nature claims that man is endowed with behavioural genes and that these genes “hold culture on a leash”. He attacks Marxism for arguing that human behaviour is conditioned by social environment and asserts that “the mind will always create morality, religion and mythology . . . the predisposition to religious belief is the most complex and powerful force in the human mind and in all probability an ineradicable part of human nature”.

Any argument based on a view of “human nature" as something defined and unchanging is seized on with enthusiasm by those who assert that humans are, by nature, greedy, selfish and violent. Without fear of prison or Hell- fire, social or divine retribution, society would inevitably disintegrate. What evidence, if any, is there to support such claims?

In the slow cold dawn of pre-history, humans — like other hunter-gatherer primates struggling for biological survival — evolved the capacity to react aggressively both against intruders if they posed a threat, and against individuals in the group whose behaviour violated its social code, thereby endangering the group’s survival. However, humans could never have survived as a species without learning to co-operate. The ability to cooperate was a prerequisite for making stone tools and hunting animals for food, which bipeds were doing three million years ago. Co-operation is at the root of all human culture. While close social bonding is a feature of all primate species, co-operation is carried furthest in humans.

Language and Religion

Wilson’s argument that language is “pre-programmed” does not hold water. For instance, a wolf child found in the forest in India “could not talk or utter any very articulate sound” (Sunday Times, 30 July 1978). A child’s innate potential for learning language is useless if he is not in contact with people who use language as a social skill. Like aggression, language-learning results from the interaction between inherited potential and actual life-experience.

The assertion that humans are born with some sort of genetically transmitted religious instinct does not explain how it is that religion is normally learned, like language or science. As part of human culture, religion has developed in different forms under changing social conditions. Now, all beliefs in the supernatural are decaying in the light of science. yet our “religious genes" are not causing this change in our outlook. "It is not religion which makes man, but man who makes religion”, wrote Marx. In rejecting religion, we do not cease to be human..

Adaptation

Since the human species has adapted successfully to almost every conceivable environment — from popular regions to the tropics, from hunter-gatherer bands of 30-50 people to conurbations of more than 10 million, from nomadic herding to city commuting — it seems clear that an outstanding characteristic of human beings is their adaptability. As Marx pointed out. "by acting on nature outside himself and changing it, man simultaneously changes his own nature”.

Above all, man is a learning animal whose progress is not restrained by the slow pace of biological evolution but moves at the rapid pace of “cultural evolution”. Culture combined with mankind’s inherent adaptability mean that Wilson’s thesis of genes controlling our behaviour-patterns is unsound.

The effect of environment on the genetic endowment of the individual is incalculable. Already in the womb, the embryo is exposed to environmental influences. Also, the penetrance of genes varies greatly. “Behaviorally the human being is highly flexible, and the penetrance of any ‘behavioral’ gene would be subject to strong environmental and cultural modification" (Alexander Allend. Evolution and Human Behaviour).

Thus a clearer understanding of what is meant by "environment” diminishes the heredity factor, so that all traits are products of a complex interaction process. We all have the potential for aggression and like other primates, we tend to become violent when under stress.

The capitalist system forces us to live in overcrowded slums, competing against one another for the necessities of life, fearful of shortage. In the worst city slums, all forms of violence are endemic — mugging, wife-beating, baby-bashing, murder and mindless vandalism. Social, not biological, factors are responsible for the problem of violence.

Mercenaries and other paid armed forces can only exist in a property society where nation states compete for resources, with expensively-armed forces manned by wage-workers. These are easier to recruit in times of bad unemployment. In such a context, genetic factors are hardly perceptible. If army recruiting relied on humanity’s "innate aggressiveness”, there would be few wars. Since men are apparently not sufficiently aggressive, conscription was used in both World Wars, and the USSR like South Africa has permanent conscription, forcing men to do what Wilson claims they have a natural tendency to do anyway.

Human behaviour can only be understood in terms of social relationships. Our ability to learn and to conceptualize make us uniquely able to transmit what is learned in one generation to the next, and it is this factor which has made man’s social, cultural and technical development over the last 10.000 years increasingly rapid. It is our unique flexibility which enables us to adapt to the changes in the physical and social environment which we ourselves create.

The causes of violence in human society, are overcrowding, inequality and scarcity. These can only be eliminated by ending capitalism, since the profit system creates and aggravates these conditions. Socialism, with its common ownership and free access, in a world of abundance, is in harmony with “human nature”.

Charmian Skelton

Fighting Human Nature (2014)

From the September 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Critics sometimes say that socialist society will not work, on the grounds that people are by nature greedy or selfish or lazy or whatever. Here we examine one writer’s arguments to the effect that people are naturally aggressive.

In his book On Human Nature, the sociobiologist Edward Wilson asks, ‘Are human beings innately aggressive?’ His answer is Yes, and here is part of his reasoning:

‘Throughout history, warfare, representing only the most organized technique of aggression, has been endemic to every form of society, from hunter-gatherer bands to industrial states. During the past three centuries a majority of the countries of Europe have been engaged in war during approximately half of all the years; few have ever seen a century of continuous peace.’

Let’s look at Wilson’s arguments, and consider some facts about human behaviour. Before going any further we should look at his definition of aggression: ‘Any physical act or threat of action by one individual that reduces the freedom or genetic fitness of another’. This is odd in that it implies that only individuals, not governments, armies or companies, can commit aggression.

With regard to those who blame aggression on environmental rather than genetic factors, he writes:

‘They forget that innateness refers to the measurable probability that a trait will develop in a specified set of environments, not to the certainty that the trait will develop in all environments. By this criterion human beings have a marked hereditary predisposition to aggressive behaviour.’

So in certain circumstances humans may behave aggressively. The extent of this probability is said to be measurable, presumably by such methods as counting the number of murders and other violent acts per head of the population.

It is important to appreciate that Wilson is not arguing that aggression is an inevitable part of human behaviour, since he accepts that it will not emerge always and everywhere (and that women as a group are less aggressive than men). He is well aware that it can vary greatly over time even within a single society: he cites, for instance, the Semai of Malaya, who were entirely peaceful until recruited by the British colonial authorities in the 1950s to fight against guerrillas. They then became extremely bloodthirsty. And there have been recent claims that the extent of violent crime in England and Wales has fallen, with only about one half of the number of violent incidents that there were in 2002. No doubt the details of the statistics are questionable, as is the claim that a rise in the price of alcohol is in large part responsible. But similar trends have been reported in other countries too, so it is likely that there is a real change here. This just emphasises the point that aggressive behaviour is influenced by other aspects of society.

Notice, moreover, that one can turn Wilson’s argument round and claim that humans are innately peaceable, by restating his claims as follows:

‘Peace has been endemic in every form of human society. There have been plenty of years when European countries have been at peace rather than fighting.’

This argument for innate peaceableness is entirely parallel to that for innate aggression, and at least as convincing.

Consider, too, your own behaviour. Some people have a shorter fuse than others, and we all get angry from time to time, but how often do you react to perceived mistreatment with physical aggression or even the threat of such action? Human society would surely be impossible, or at best very unpleasant, if people really used physical force even a large part of the time. That simply is not how people behave.

Wilson also argues:

‘Most significantly of all, the human forms of aggressive behavior are species-specific: although basically primate in form, they contain features that distinguish them from aggression in all other species.’

There is no general aggressive instinct applying to all animals, and humans are far less aggressive and violent than hyenas or lions, for instance. Wilson seems to be claiming that humans show only some of the possible aggressive responses found in the animal kingdom, hence there is something specifically human about people's aggressive behaviour, therefore it must be genetically inherited. But what is supposed to follow from this?

In fact he sees human aggression as ‘a structured, predictable pattern of interaction between genes and environment’. He does not appear to believe that anyone can predict whether individuals or groups will behave aggressively in any particular situation, so all that is left is the claim that genes and environment interact to affect how we behave. Which is neither surprising nor worrying.

Wilson examines some hunter-gatherer societies, and then summarises his position:

‘Human beings are strongly predisposed to respond with unreasoning hatred to external threats and to escalate their hostility sufficiently to overwhelm the source of the threat by a respectably wide margin of safety.’

The question of how violent hunter-gatherer and other tribal societies really are remains controversial (see Edward Helmore in the Observer, 3 February 2013) but his examples show no more than that people sometimes act aggressively and that various cultural and environmental factors determine whether they in fact do so (such as the reliability of food supplies).

In addition, we should examine to what extent Wilson’s claims discredit the idea of socialism. If people really were ‘predisposed’ to react violently to each other, especially to strangers, then he might have a case against an egalitarian stateless society. But in socialism there will be no ‘external threats’ of the kind he envisages, so nothing follows about the impossibility of such a way of organising society.

Nothing Wilson says argues against the following claim:

‘it is part of human nature to be able to become aggressive and to wage war. But how and when we become aggressive is controlled by our cultures rather than by our genes.’ (Marvin Harris: Cannibals and Kings)

The Socialist Party’s pamphlet Are We Prisoners of Our Genes? discusses a number of other arguments about the way human behaviour is supposedly controlled by our genetic inheritance.

Paul Bennett