Engels on Human Evolution (2010)

From the September 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Links to Part 1 and Part 2.

Engels followed the impact of Darwin’s ideas more closely than Marx. He may even have read Darwin's “The Descent of Man”.

Unlike Marx, Engels continued his interest in Darwin and things Darwinian beyond the initial general public furore created by the publication of Origin. Apart from references to Darwin in his correspondence with Marx and others, the first major piece of work Engels produced was the notes for the unfinished The Rôle of Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, written between May and June 1876, over five years after the publication of the Descent.

This speculative, but interesting, work which includes a strong element of Lamarckism (but even Darwin had to resort to a version of Lamarck), can be seen as a Marxian response to the “Man’s place in nature” debate in at least two important ways. First of all, it attempts to show in what way humans are different from other animals. Unlike Darwin, who was eager to point to the similarities across species, to indicate the origins of typical human behaviour in a simpler form in other species, and that humans were only quantitatively different from animals, Engels was adamant in showing both the difference and similarities between humans and other animals. Whilst speculating in how human labour activity had evolved from earlier forms along with the evolution of physical organisation, and therefore within the Darwinian explanatory framework, he was also wanted to show how human labour differed from that of lower animals. Following the same line of argument he and Marx had arrived at thirty years previously in The German Ideology, he wrote:

“Animals…change the environment by their activities in the same way, even if not to the same extent, as man does, and these changes, as we have seen, in turn react upon and change those who made them…But animals exert a lasting effect on their environment unintentionally and, as far as the animals themselves are concerned, accidentally. The further removed men are from animals, however, the more their effect on nature assumes the character of premeditated, planned action directed towards preconceived ends” (Marx and Engels Collected Works, volume 25, p.459).

“In short, the animal merely uses its environment, and brings about changes in it simply by its presence; man by his changes makes it serve his ends, masters it. This is the final, essential distinction between man and other animals, and once again it is labour that brings about this distinction” (ibid., p.460).

In addition to this evolutionary explanation of the difference between human and animal labour, Engels’s argument can also be seen as a materialist response to Wallace’s “unseen spirit” explanation of the difference between humans and animal. Furthermore, Engels also opposed the mental materialism of Darwin, who based the difference between humans and other animals in the more developed and complex mentality of humans; a form of idealism that had dominated Western philosophy since the rise of Christianity:

“All merit for the swift advance of civilisation was ascribed to the mind, to the brain. Man became accustomed to explain their actions as arising out of thought instead of their needs (which in any case are reflected and perceived in the mind); and so in the course of time there emerged that idealistic world outlook which, especially since the fall of the world of antiquity, has dominated men’s minds. It still rules them to such a degree that even the most materialistic natural scientists of the Darwinian school are still unable to form any clear idea of the origin of man, because under this ideological influence they do not recognize the part that has been played therein by labour.”

Did Engels Read The Descent?

Engels seems to have kept up with the Darwinian literature on human evolution, making reference to T.H. Huxley, Ernst Haeckel, John Lubbock Charles Lyell and Alfred Russel Wallace, although it is not always clear which of their works he is referring to. So it is somewhat surprising that there is no explicit reference to The Descent or to what Darwin wrote on the matter. But seeing that he had read all these other authors, who had made their contribution before 1871, and that Darwin was the most important figure in this group, it would seem unusual that Engels would not read The Descent. Also, he had five years to read him before he started work on The Rôle of Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man in May 1876.

There is, however, some textual evidence that Engels did read The Descent. In the second paragraph of his pamphlet, Engels writes:

“Darwin has given us an approximate description of these ancestors of ours. They were completely covered with hair, they had beards and pointed ears, and they lived in bands in trees.”

This description attributed to Darwin comes in part from The Descent. In Chapter 6, “On the Affinities and Genealogy of Man,” Darwin writes:

“The early progenitors of man must have been once covered with hair, both sexes having beards; their ears were probably pointed, and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail, having proper muscles”

(Darwin The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871; Penguin edition 2004, p.188).

The reference to “they lived in bands in trees“ too seems to have come from The Descent, as Darwin writes:    

“We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.” (p. 678)

Therefore, unless Engels got these from another author, these two separate references provide adequate justification for thinking that Engels did read The Descent.

From Darwin to Marx: From Biology to History

Human beings possess a dual character, as both biological and historical beings, in a radically different way from any other animal.

For non-human animals, the biological, structural determination of their activity is dominant. As they get more biologically complex, they acquire the capacity for their activity to be modified by previous interactions with the world, but they live in the “now”; their activity is concerned with adjusting to the immediate circumstances they are interacting with. They have a blind past, as a species and as individual organism, but not a history.

Only humans have history. Through their linguistic ability and social co-operation, human beings have over centuries achieved (it is not nature-given) a greater degree of purpose and agency than any other species. As a result, they not only have a history, but can make history. But making history requires that the impersonal, law-like relations of the capital relationship, of production for profit, be destroyed and replaced by a free association of producers who create a world in their own interests and their own purpose. Only then will humanity shift from a determined pre-history to a determining history.

Ed Blewitt

(concluded)

The Genesis of the “Great Man”. (1917)

From the June 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the most commonly held of the many erroneous, and therefore misleading, theories regarding history and the movements of human society is that which frequently goes by the name of the “Great Man Theory.” From its point of view those individuals who achieve prominence in any event or movement are the prime factors and forces behind it, and the real social forces which underlie them are entirely unappreciated. Thus the personality of Napoleon is looked upon as the cause of the wars associated with his name, Wat Tyler is regarded as the author of the Peasants’ Revolt, the evolution theory is thought to be due to the genius of men like Spencer and Darwin, Karl Marx is credited with being the generator of modern Socialism, and to Cecil Rhodes is attributed the Cape to Cairo Railway.

The influence of this theory upon the working class is baneful because under it many are deluded into looking to “leaders” and “intellectuals,” instead of to themselves, for their salvation, while some are led to embrace the vagaries and absurdities of Anarchism. It is quite easy to see that political assasination must appear a really sound and sensible procedure to those who, holding this point of view, wish to abolish social evils. Experience, however, shows that such action rarely, if ever, has the desired effect. And why ? Because the social conditions obtaining at any time are not dependent upon the existence of any individual, however prominent, but are decreed by the material conditions under which men live. So long as these remain unchanged, so long will the resultant social forms remain, and they will not be appreciably affected by the removal of any individual whatever.

To say this is not, of course, to deny the existence of great men, for to do so would be just as foolish as going to the other extreme. Every “great man” is the outcome of two main factors. One is biological and internal. No one will deny that the mental or physical capacity of an Alexander or an Aristotle, a Marx, a Darwin or a Napoleon, is vastly superior to that of the majority of men. The case is one of variations like unto those which occur in all living creatures. But this capacity alone is not sufficient to make a “great man.” Charles Peace would never be included among such, yet his genius was probably as pronounced as that of many who would be so designated.

This brings us to the second factor: the historical and external one. Every person is born into surroundings or environment conditions which have grown out of different preceding conditions, this movement itself being part of a continuous process of change and growth.

We may broadly classify the changing forms of environment into three mutually pervading and interdependent divisions or phases, material, social, and intellectual. That these are interlinked is easily shown when it is remembered that societies are forms of group relationships between material things, e.g., human beings ; that all ideas are based upon the perception of material phenomena and the relations between them, through the medium of the sense organs and the nervous system, themselves material in structure ; that the mind perceives among other things social conditions, and that ideas can aid in bringing about both social changes and fresh material things into existence.

But that the above classification is justifiable and useful enough can be shown by contrasting two different environments in their several phases. In England about the twelfth century the face of the country presented an aspect very different in many respects to its present one. Great belts of virgin forest and open fen remained of the great primaeval wild. There existed nothing of the network of hedges which to-day cuts up the country like a monster chess board. Wild animals were much more varied and plentiful. The towns were small and few and far between. There were no railways, few roads, and few brick buildings.

Social relations were just as different. There were practically no wage-workers. A large serf population existed—men unable to leave the village of their birth ; conditionally holding land and rendering compulsory service to a lord. The prices of merchandise were regulated largely by Guild associations and not by competition as to-day. In the intellectual field the contrast is just as marked. The majority of the population were then unable to read or write. Everyone, aristocrat or peasant, was deeply superstitious, believing in personal gods, devils, saints, and witches. Little or nothing was known of natural laws. There was no geology, no biology, nothing of the modern conception of universal evolution, and no social science. Religion dominated men’s theories, science was embryonic.

Returning now, after this digression, to “great men,” it is evident that everyone’s activities are moulded by the conditions of the age. No one, however clever, can transcend the possibilities of his time. Even the most profound thinkers and men of action must use the material to hand and must build upon the past labours of others. It is this inheritance of the accumulated experience of mankind’s past, in each generation, which makes all cultural and social progress possible. Were it possible for a child of highly civilised parents to develop in isolation amid natural surroundings, it would grow up not only illiterate but almost speechless, and with intelligence woefully stunted from lack of opportunity to develop it.

Real greatness consists of making the most of the material available, in reaching to the very outposts of the possible, in seeing things only just perceptible and hidden from the commonality of men.

The conditions for Darwin’s “Origin of Species” were laid before a line of it was penned. Darwin was obviously dependent upon the developed arts of writing and printing, on tho orderly classification of living things such as had been performed by Linnaeus. In his dedication to the “Voyage of the Beagle” Darwin pays a tribute to Lyell’s “Principles of Geology” as forming an essential preliminary to all his works. The point is clinched when it is remembered how many minds independently approached the theory of natural selection about the same time (see the historical note to the “Origin”), and it is well known how tho eminent naturalist, A. Russel Wallace, came to identical conclusions on his own accord.

The same phenomenon is apparent right through the history of science. Marius, Jansen, and Lippershey simultaneously invented the telescope. Both Adams and Leverrier discovered Neptune. Marx, Engels, and Morgan, by different routes, reached “Historical Materialism.” After decades of failures, Peary, Amundsen, and Scott reached the earth’s poles within a very brief period of each other. The recent development of aviation is equally instructive.

In political or social movements generally, conditions are somewhat different, for the action once taken, it cannot as a rule be repeated, and verification such as that possible in intellectual evolution is here impossible. But a little examination will always reveal the conditions prepared before any movement is realised. Alexander’s empire was made possible by the weakened and disorganised state of the older Greek powers, due to internal corruption and the ravages of the Peloponnesian War, together with the rotten organisation of the Persian empire already revealed by the notorious retreat of “the ten thousand.” The Macedonian spear and the efficient phalanx military formation were the deciding forces and Alexander the pinnacle of a whole system of favourable conditions. In like manner Napoleon as Emperor without the French Revolution as a preparation is quite unthinkable.

In conclusion it may be mentioned that there are always sufficient men of genius to satisfy all requirements. A “great man” never fails to sprout when the environment is favourable. Scores of men with the internal potentialities of greatness must be “wasted” by their labours being suffocated in unfruitful channels. In a sentence, we find that the greatest of men are the creatures and not the creators of their age.

H.

Letter: Richard Dawkins replies . . . (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the December 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Thank you for sending me this review, which I was glad to see. I’m not sure what sort of feedback you want, since it is presumably too late to correct minor errors such as the title of Darwin’s book. It is The Origin of Species (Origin of the Species is a common solecism). Darwin’s ‘Devil’s Chaplain’ letter was written in 1856, three years too early to be ‘commenting on’ his book, but it presumably is fair to say he was commenting on thoughts that were then in his head and were later to find expression in his book. I am curious why the mention of the Rationalist Press Association is followed by ‘and‘ it is safe to say he is no socialist ‘though‘ he did come out against the war. Does this mean the RPA has a right-wing pro-war reputation, I hadn’t realised. By the way, I think I did more than just ‘come out’ against the war. I have published more articles like this one - Dead Link - than I can easily track down.

Richard Dawkins (by email)

Reply:

Thank you for pointing out the errors. You are reading too much into that “and”. We don’t think that the RPA is “rightwing” and “pro-war”, but simply that it isn’t socialist. We don’t think you claim to be a socialist either, do you?—Editors.

Blogger's Note:

Sadly, the link for the Guardian comment piece that Dawkins mentions in his letter is dead.  It's possible that he was referring to this Guardian comment piece from the 22nd March, 2003 . . . we'll never know.

Darwin’s Origin of Species (2006)

Book Review from the November 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Darwin’s Origin of Species by Janet Browne. (Atlantic Books, 2006)

In a New York Times poll in November 2004, 55 percent of respondents agreed that God had created human beings in their present form. Clearly the Darwinian revolution has some way to go. Darwin’s revolutionary work was first published in November 1859 with the full title: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. And yet the theory of evolution could have been known under a different name. In the previous year the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace had sent Darwin an essay in which he set out the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin’s friends hurriedly arranged for both works to be published at the same time, so the theory should really be known as the Wallace-Darwin theory, if not the Wallace theory of evolution. In any event, Wallace and Darwin became good friends and Wallace collaborated with Darwin in his research and helped in the revised editions of Origin of Species.

Origin of Species went through six editions during Darwin’s lifetime and he made many corrections and alterations. In the fifth edition (1869), at Wallace’s suggestion, Darwin first introduced the notorious phrase “survival of the fittest.” Wallace had taken this phrase from the writings of Herbert Spencer, a well known atheist and supporter of capitalism in late nineteenth century Britain. Spencer’s ideas would became known as “Social Darwinism” and he maintained that society was an organism exactly the same as a biological organism. From his perspective he argued against the building of lighthouses around the British coastline because, so he claimed, shipwrecks were “nature’s” (i.e. capitalism’s) way of sorting out the fit from the unfit. Darwin had never taken any of Spencer’s ideas on social evolution seriously and the phrase “survival of the fittest” is at odds with Darwin’s own ideas about natural selection by adaptation.

Browne ends her account of Wallace by saying that he went on to become a “utopian socialist.” In fact he became a supporter of utopian capitalism. He advocated land nationalisation and was an enthusiast for Edward Bellamy’s state capitalist vision of the future in his novel Looking Backward (1888). When Darwin died in April 1882 aged seventy-three, Origin of Species had truly become one of the “Books That Shook The World,” the publisher’s title for this series of biographies which includes Marx’s Das Kapital (see the review in the October Socialist Standard). There is a slight link between the two books. Marx thought very highly of Origin of Species and sent Darwin a presentation copy of Das Kapital. But he did not, as sometimes claimed, offer to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin. Rather it was Marx’s son-in-law, Edward Aveling, who offered to dedicate one of his books to Darwin. Darwin never read Das Kapital and he rejected Aveling’s offer.

Lew Higgins

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

Marx and the Ideology of Darwin (2010)

From the August 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx admired Darwin’s work but was critical of some of the conclusions drawn from it. The second of our three-part article on Marx and Engels and Darwin .

In Marx’s initial enthusiastic reading of The Origin of Species he had written to both Engels (19 December 1860) and Lassalle (16 January 1861) that it “contains the natural-history foundation of our viewpoint” and that “it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle.” What could he have meant by these comments? He was certainly not saying that the Darwinian process applied to human society. After all, Marx had spent nigh on 20 years grappling with trying to understand social processes and arriving at the “guiding thread” of his materialist conception. It is unlikely that in the 18 months separating what he wrote in the famous 1859 Preface and his reading of Darwin’s Origin that he would have jettisoned his own hard won approach and replaced it with Darwin’s. So what was the connection with Darwin? It is unlikely to have been Darwin’s Malthusianism, as anything smacking of Malthus would have been contemptible to Marx. Perhaps a closer look at what Darwin meant by the phrase “struggle for existence” may help.

Darwin made clear in The Origin that he used this phrase in a metaphoric sense to cover a wide range of situations:

“I should premise that I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphoric sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny. Two canine animals in time of dearth, may be truly said to struggle with each other which shall get the food and live. But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent on the moisture.”

(Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859; Penguin edition 1968, p.116.)

And:

“Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life.” (ibid., p.117.)

This “large and metaphoric” meaning of the phrase “struggle for existence” includes more than the Hobbesian “war of all against all” or of “nature red in tooth and claw” of Tennyson, and refers to the necessity of all biological species to obtain their means of survival and reproduction from their interaction with the environment they inhabit, and that different biological forms have different kinds of interaction with their surroundings. Human beings, too, have to confront this problem of obtaining their conditions of existence. Indeed, in The German Ideology (1845) in which Marx and Engels first formulated their materialist conception, they state:

“The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions of their life, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.

The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus, the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself – geological, oro-hydrographical, climatic and so on. All historical writing must set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.” (Marx and Engels, Collected Works, volume 5, p. 31.)

In this process of obtaining their conditions of existence humans in particular construct and use tools as instruments of production, but so too, to a lesser degree, do other animals. Far more important for animals in this was the specialised development of parts of their body. And it was this aspect of Darwin’s “epoch-making work” (Capital, volume 1, Penguin edition, 1976, p. 461, note 6) that Marx referred to in the only comments published during his lifetime, and then only as footnotes in Capital, volume 1:

“Darwin has directed attention to the history of natural technology, i.e., the formation of organs of plants and animals, which serve as the instruments of production for sustaining their life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man in society, of organs that are the material basis of every particular organisation of society, deserve equal attention? And would not such a history be easier to compile, since, as Vico says, human history differs from natural history in that we have made the former, but not the latter. Technology reveals the active relation of man to nature, the direct process of the production of his life, and thereby it also lays bare the process of production of the social relations of his life, and of the mental conceptions that flow from those relations. . . . The weaknesses of the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism which excludes the historical process, are immediately evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions expressed by their spokesmen whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality.” (Capital, volume 1, Penguin edition, 1976, pp. 493-494, note 4.)

Throughout his work, Marx always made a distinction between natural history and human history, and the difference between animals and humans in their relationship to their conditions of existence. Again in the German Ideology, he and Engels had written of this:

“[Men] themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.” ( p. 31.)

As soon as human beings start to produce their means of subsistence they must enter into certain kinds of relations of production, and these are not nature-determined as they are with other species. The earliest humans may have started out with nature given conditions, but the evolution of their biological structures made it both possible and necessary for them to move beyond this. This aspect of human beings was beyond Darwin’s viewpoint; he could not move beyond natural history.

Although Marx appreciated the scientific significance of The Origin, his critical perspective brought to the fore some of Darwin’s ideological assumptions, especially when applied to human society and the use made to justify capitalism as “natural.” In one of his last letter in which he mentions Darwin, writing to Laura and Paul Lafargue (15 February 1869) he wrote:

“Darwin is led by the struggle for life in English society – the competition of all with all, bellum ominum contra omnes – to discover competition […] as the ruling law of ‘bestial’ and vegetative life. The Darwinian, conversely, considers this a conclusive reason for human society never to emancipate itself from its bestiality.”

Marx’s interest in Darwin did not extend beyond The Origin, and there is no evidence that he read The Descent of Man or any other of Darwin’s works. However, there is no doubt that he appreciated Darwin’s “epoch-making work” and held Darwin in high regard. This is made clear when he sent Darwin, on 25 September1873, an inscribed copy of the second German edition of Capital: “Mr Charles Darwin on the part of his sincere admirer Karl Marx.”

Darwin (1 October 1873) sent a typically courteous but non-committal reply, and the majority of the pages remain uncut in Darwin’s library. And since the mid-1970s the myth that Marx wished to dedicate volume 2 of Capital to Darwin has been laid to rest.

On the same day he sent his inscribed copy to Darwin, Marx also sent one to Herbert Spencer, another giant of 19th century thought, perhaps even more widely read by others than even Darwin. But apart from the long forgotten Italian criminologist, Enrico Ferri, who wrote Socialism and Positivism (1894; English edition 1905), who else has attempted a Darwin-Spencer-Marx link up?

Ed Blewitt

Next month (concluding article): Had Engels read Darwin’s The Descent of Man? The first part appeared in the June issue.

What is ‘scientific’ socialism? (2023)

From the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

By the middle of the nineteenth century two revolutions in thought occurred. Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace proved the fact of biological evolution by natural selection. This does not imply ‘progress from ‘lower’ to ‘higher’ life-forms’ as some people still imagine. That was the slant put upon it by Victorian bourgeois progressivism. This pseudo-theory of evolution – the ladder principle – enables capitalist society to retain the anthropocentric mythology Judaeo-Christian religion had inculcated for centuries in a supposedly scientific guise. Rather, Darwin and Wallace disliked the term ‘evolution’ as too easily open to such misinterpretation.

The other was that the study of human society since the emergence of settled farming communities to modern industrial capitalist society was scientifically enriched thanks to the work of two German thinkers, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Like the biological evolutionists, Marx and Engels had inherited a tradition of social research reaching back in time, and it is no surprise that the two monuments to human self-awareness were published about the same time: Darwin`s The Origin of Species, and Marx`s Capital. Marx`s friend Engels also produced some excellent shorter works such as Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, and The Origins of the Family, Private Property & The State.

In Capital, Marx explained the theory of surplus value and the wages system, which is the basis of capitalist society, and showed how this system grew from its predecessor in Europe, the feudal system. He also showed how, with each move forward in social development since chattel slavery, classes are expunged from society, leaving under capitalism but two classes. The bourgeoisie, or capitalist class, lives on rent, interest and profit – the surplus value produced by the proletariat, or working class.

The worker must first be deprived of any control of means of production – be it land, industry, means of distribution, factories, railways etc. All of which are exclusively owned by the capitalist class. The peasantry had to be dispossessed of its cottage industries and evicted from the land so as to turn them into a propertyless class obliged to work for the capitalists. Having no access to, nor control of, the means of production and distribution, the worker is obliged to sell their physical and mental energy to the capitalist in return for a wage (call it salary for snob-value if you will). This wage is the price of the worker`s labour-power, and does not cover the value of what they produce. The difference constitutes surplus value, which goes straight into the pocket of the capitalist, enriching him at the worker`s expense. The worker thus remains for life in a state of economic dependence on the parasitical capitalist. As for work which is not directly productive, such as the so-called professions, services, and so on, all serve to buttress the system, of which the accumulation of capital, derived from surplus value, is the core.

Just as the slaves of ancient Rome ran the whole of society, so does the working class today. From surgeons to roadsweepers, from astrophysicists to labourers and the unemployed, all are members of the working class. If you are dependent on a salary (wage) in order to live (or on a handout when unemployed), whether your salary is high or low, if you are thus economically dependent, you belong to the working class. It is more likely that small capitalists will be thrown into the ranks of the working class by the machinery of capitalism, than that a worker will become a capitalist. Generally speaking, one is born into one class or the other. Still, it is inculcated in us by capitalist propaganda that ‘if you work hard, you ‘make good’ and that workers who do manage to switch class by exploiting others and becoming social parasites (capitalists) are to be praised and admired.

The state

The state is the organ of coercion with which a ruling class maintains its rule over the rest of the population. Under capitalism, therefore, the state, of whatever political slant or colour, is the machinery by which the minority capitalist class keeps in subjection the majority working class which is exploited for profit. Under capitalism, only these two social classes remain in existence. There can only be a state where there is a class to rule over others. So, with the emancipation of the working class (the last subject class) from the wages system (capitalism), both classes cease to exist. The state therefore will cease to exist. Marx and Engels believed, and today`s genuine socialists (communists) believe, that in order to topple capitalist rule, the working class must seize control of the state and use its forces of coercion (army and police) to dispossess the capitalists of the means of production, placing those means in the hands democratically of everyone. Capitalist and worker both then cease to exist, as does the state, and we have for the first time a society of human beings, in control of their own destiny.

Thus we have scientific socialism (communism) – the common control of the means of production – following from a scientific historical analysis, whereas before we only had utopian socialism (communism) – usually expressed in terms of common ownership of goods – following from the ancient dream, running through the Middle Ages and into the 18th century, with only hope as a basis and incapable of an accurate historical analysis.

Socialism and communism are two words meaning the same – a future society in which the workers of today have emancipated themselves as described above. But very soon, pro-capitalist politicians saw the advantage in misappropriating the terms to confuse the workers. ‘Socialism’ came to mean Labour Party-type state-ownership, or Leninism, while ‘communism’ was misconstrued as something again which was different – a Bolshevik-style one-party tyranny (again, see below). But, since the state can only be the instrument of class rule, so state ownership (nationalisation) is not socialism, but merely capitalism run by state bureaucrats. This was the outcome in particular of the capitalist revolutions which took place in the 20th century in the Russian and Chinese empires.

In the 19th century too, anarchism arose within the genuine socialist movement to oppose the Marxian view that the state must be seized by the working class in order to use its coercive machinery to dispossess the capitalists. Anarchists were afraid that this would prove too tempting to socialist delegates doing the seizing, who would then use the state`s machinery against the workers. Since ‘socialism’ has been perverted by capitalist ideologues to mean ‘state-ownership’, this concern is understandable. However, unless the state is seized from the capitalists and their politicians, the armed forces remain in their hands and might be used to try to smash any attempted revolution. Hence it is absolutely necessary to take control of the state, thus disarming the capitalist class, which can then be dispossessed of the means of production. Socialist delegates to the parliaments (the law-making part of the state) would have but one mandate: the dismantling of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. They would not attempt to enter office under the capitalist state, and would be instantly recalled and dismissed by the workers if they attempted to do so. Furthermore, the absolute majority of workers would be actively making the revolution – which is why, too, any attempt by a socialist minority to stage a take-over against the wishes of the majority of workers would be doomed.

A. W.

50 Years Ago: The Darwin Centenary (2009)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

As this month is the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, a book that raised a storm in its day, we are devoting considerable space in this issue to Darwinism and its relation to Marxism, particularly as Marx published the first section of his main work the same year.

  Darwinism is an outlook based upon certain fundamental propositions put forward by Charles Darwin, just as Marxism is an outlook based upon certain fundamental propositions put forward by Karl Marx. Books by both of them were published in 1859 which clearly stated their fundamental propositions, and each devoted the rest of his life to accumulating facts in support of the theories that had been put forward. In both instances their theories have been enriched and qualified in certain directions by subsequent investigation, but in neither instance has the accuracy of their fundamental propositions been affected.

  Just as Darwin brought order into biological investigation, so Marx brought order into social investigations. Darwin demonstrated that living forms evolve and Marx demonstrated that social forms evolve.

(…)

  In the early years of the Socialist Party of Great Britain the Darwin controversy was still at white heat. We accepted his theory of evolution and had to defend it from the platforms and in our literature. Now the antagonists have fled the field, the evolutionary theory is generally accepted, and the various religious denominations, which used to be its bitterest opponents, are trying their hardest to digest it into their deluding creeds, just as the economists and historians are trying to digest and demoralize Marxism.

(Editorial, Socialist Standard, November 1959)

The Survival of the Fittest. Is Socialism the Gospel of the Unfit? (1904)

From the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

Twenty years ago the principles of Socialism were certainly most imperfectly understood by the mass of the people, but the recent article in the Daily Mail entitled “The Gospel of the Unfit,” shows also that a large number of educated men are still ignorant of its simplest elements. Mr. Perceval Gibbon, confused no doubt by the fact that every philanthropist and “labour leader” or any one else who expresses sympathy with the poor and oppressed, is dubbed a Socialist, has hardly grappled the “pure principle of Socialism” of which he writes. He is undoubtedly correct in his assumption that the Cause has attracted to its ranks many would-be politicians who find therein an outlet for their own personal ambitions, and who, obtaining a following, use the power thus obtained for their own ends. This is a parasitic growth common to all great movements ; and in all countries it has been recognised by the Socialist parties as unavoidable. Meanwhile the Revisionists and “labour leaders” are being vigourously attacked; the Liberal, who tries to conceal his identity under a cloak of Socialism, is like the ass in the lion’s skin, and betrays himself when he begins to bray.

The false idea of Socialism is still further increased by the action of that Press which sees Socialism in every measure touching the working-class. Even the late Labour Ministry in Australia was described as “Socialist,” despite the absence from the Senate and House of Reprsentatives of a single Socialist member.

It is admitted that these misleading statements have riveted the attention of the public on self-seeking individuals to the neglect of the “pure principles of Socialism.” This, too, Mr. Gibbon finds “noxious and hostile to the natural tendency of the human race to growth in all directions,” for, “by opposing the law of the survival of the fittest it rallies the unfit to its side.”

This statement is the portion of Mr. Gibbon’s article which needs serious consideration. Now, if this hostility to Nature be really present, the scientists—and there are many—who support Socialism must be in a somewhat difficult position, for it is on scientific grounds that the Socialist bases his principles, and it is from the Theory of Evolution that he draws his conclusions ; in fact the Theory of Evolution forms the bed-rock of his Economics and Philosophy. How then can his Socialism be in opposition to the natural tendencies of the human race ? The mistake, only too often made, is due to a narrow interpretation of the Darwinian theory.

The word “fittest” is made to apply always to the individual instead of to the community or species. The “fittest” then, in the modern state of “civilised society,” is the cunningest, even though physically and morally rotten ; that is to say, the big financier, the swindler, etc ! No doubt such folk are the fittest under the present conditions, but let the present conditions be altered, and the fittest to survive will be a totally different being. And the present conditions must alter, for modern competition between man and man is largely a hot-house product, forced on by artificial means, and unfitted to survive long in the open field of Nature.

Further, this suicidal struggle does not eliminate, but creates, the “unfit” and “unemployable.” Strenuous competition is apt to throw out the capable and fit as well as to increase the degradation and misery of the “unfit” by heredity. It must be remembered also that it is from the section of the “unfit” that Socialism draws none of its recruits, while it is from the loafer and parasite at both ends of the social scale that the Movement meets with most of its opposition. On the other hand, it is from the more intellectual and capable of the citizen class that Socialism receives its chief support.

What then is this “Gospel of the Unfit,” and at what system of Society does it aim ? It demands, broadly speaking, a Society in which social production shall be for social use. This involves the forming of the Co-operative Commonwealth. The questions to be considered are, therefore, whether co-operation on a large scale is in accordance with the Laws of Evolution, and whether it will tend to aid the advance, intellectual, physical, and moral, of the human race.

The Theory of Evolution as put forward by Darwin, still remains the clearest conception of the origin and development of the various organic kingdoms, but it must not be forgotten that his theories were largely influenced by two important forces, namely, the desire to prove that man had evolved, and the teaching of Malthus. These two considerations led him to ignore, for the most part, a factor of evolution into which he had not the time to fully enquire. This factor was the Law of Co-operation, which perhaps played a more important part in the development of species than any law of struggle or competition. Most of Darwin’s followers have, however, been too narrow-minded to follow out a train of thought often suggested in his works. In the third chapter of “The Origin of Species” he says, “I should premise that I use the term ‘Struggle for Existence’ in in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual but success in leaving progeny.”

We find too, in “The Descent of Man,” that “those communities which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best,” and he points out further that co-operation leads to the highest development of the intellect and morality needful for the survival of the species.

If we examine carefully this “dependence of one being on another” and “the success in leaving progeny,” we find that the former results in the latter, and that co-operation regularly takes place during the breeding season for the sake of protection against a common enemy—the combination of several species of birds to attack a bird of prey is one of the commonest sights in nature. This same “dependence of one being on another ” results in the highest development of the individual, for we find that individual intelligence and activity are conspicuous wherever the members of the species co-operate.

Among insects none are of higher intellect than the bees, ants, and termites. Their great works—their roads, their storehouses, are all marvels of workmanship, and each member of the community is capable of performing any part of the necessary work. Nor is any greater or less than another: an ant that refuses to help with food a fellow ant in need of it is killed.

Among birds, none are of greater intelligence than the parrots and cranes, who always live in communities and practise mutual help.

Among mammals there are few that do not associate with their species. The happy lives of the members of the marmot communities, and the wonderful powers of the beaver are notable examples of the development attained through co-operation.

We find, too, that the monkeys, which show the highest development of all mammals, except man, live almost wholly in societies. Finally, among primitive men, savages, and barbarians, communism was the rule, and it is undoubtedly to this that we owe the high development of the human race.

So then, the “survival of the fittest” does not imply mutual competition, which leads to the destruction and weakening of the species, but rather mutual help. This, however, can only be properly practised in a Society where social production is for social use instead of for individual profit; and where the individual, freed from the degrading and destructive struggle for the means of existence, may have time and space to fully develope his own individuality without depriving the other members of his species of the necessaries of life. For Socialism by no means aims at reducing all men to the same dead level— a sheer impossibility—but rather seeks the development of a Society in which Nature, with her laws of natural selection, may have perfect freedom from all artificiality, and in which the mutual law shall be, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

Sydney Chase

Socialism and Science. (1927)

From the October 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Concerning the beginnings of the cosmic system, we are without knowledge. Science is concerned with the universe as we find it, and speculations as to beginning or finality would both be futile. The indestructibility of matter seems fairly established, and we therefore, only look for efficient causes to effect the changes that would bring about the forms we know to-day. There is evidence of a continuity of processes, the totality of which we term evolution. From astrology to astronomy, from alchemy to chemistry, supernatural creation to naturally selected species, such has been the unfolding in the branches of knowledge that has given us the concept of the universe as a totality of its relations : Before we can formulate a science upon any particular subject, we proceed by a certain method. That method is similar whether the subject matter be the Solar System or the Social System. First induction or the gathering of the facts by experiment and observation; second, the classification and generalisation of such facts into sequences or series, and finally the deduction from such sequences of a theory or scientific law which allows of no other interpretation of the facts than the one consistently derived. By such methods came the Atomic Theory in chemistry, the Law of Gravitation in Physics, the Germ Theory in Pathology, and the Labour Theory of Value in Economics. By such methods we are enabled to understand and explain the facts of experience, and also to supply the antidote to the numbing effects of Capitalist mal-education. Laplace, seeking material for his Nebulae Hypothesis found that he had no need for the God Idea. All science dispenses with such products of man’s ignorant fear. It assigns him his place in nature, and lays to rest for ever the belief in the supernatural. True, there are gaps that require filling in, but they are gaps in our knowledge, not in nature. Aided by abstract thought and the service rendered to one science by another, the gaps are filling. Worlds are not born except of pre-existing matter, and the astronomer has but to turn his powerful telescope toward the heavens, and, with the aid of the spectroscope, analyse, review and reconstruct the birth, growth and decay of solar systems like our own. Piecing together what was previously “explained” by childish theology (He made the stars) we learn that this earth was once a whirling gaseous mass thrown off the sun. Allowing for immense periods of time, cooling would take place, and condensation would bring with it a covering of water and ultimately the formation of oceans. From various sources, we know that primitive life must have begun in these oceans, and through the over-laid strata of the earth disturbed and altered though it has been, we piece together the history of plant and animal life from the geological order in which their fossils are embedded. We find the many extinct forms that were modified and evolved toward those that began life in a world like the one we know to-day.

It was upon this background that Darwin projected the results of his observations. It provided him with the eras of time in which to account for the differentiation of animals and plants from earlier times. It also enabled him to show that continual changing of the earth’s surface would beget conditions which, with the prolific nature in all species, would involve intense struggle for the limited available subsistence. Those species that acquired any advantage from one generation to another in the quest for food, and in the struggle against natural obstacles, would be the species that nature’s sifting process considered fittest to survive.

Those unable to adapt themselves as species would become extinct. Instead of plan and design, as talked of by the Christian, nature has been found to be one huge slaughterhouse of those for whom no place has been found. Darwin knew, of course, from his researches, that man must be included in his evolutionary process. He did not say, as so many falsely assert, that “man came from monkeys” : Man comes from his parents, they from ancestors, and they in turn from more primitive ancestors.

The evidence upon which Darwin relied to establish man’s development from lower forms was the close resemblance of primitive man in structure to the apes known as anthropoid. The resemblance is a much closer one than that between some living races of men. This structural likeness with many other similarities, is too close to be explained in any other way than by common ancestry at some earlier period. Man’s body, too, contains rudimentary parts which point with certainty to his lowly origin. Life begets life, and all biological forms evolve in a similar manner. From the simple cell stage to the most complex organism, plant, animal and man all develop alike, the cell is the unit. The human embryo commences with the union of the male and female cell, and the main history of the species is retold during its development, the last form it passes through before birth being that of the anthropoid ape. Man’s journey commences where he develops language and the ability to construct tools. With a mean power over nature’s materials, he was for thousands of years cradled in the crude communism of the tribe. With a subsistence so mean that it permitted of no idlers, it seems paradoxical that it was the very increase in productivity that made slavery possible. Slavery and class society arrive together. Says Karl Marx, the founder of the science of Socialism : “All history is the history of class struggles.” True to the scientific method, Marx assembled his facts, and answered his critics, with a patience and a thoroughness equalled only by his contemporary Darwin. He bequeathed to the workers an analysis of Capitalist society that has withstood the onslaughts of the paid Professors of the Universities for over half-a-century. In the monumental work Capital, the cause of working-class poverty, is made obvious and clear, and there is shown, that to understand the cause, is to understand the remedy. To remove poverty the workers must by class conscious activity take from the Master Class their means of life. They must commonly own these means which to-day are the Private Property of the Capitalist few. To enjoy the leisurely life, the modern powers of wealth-production make possible, Social revolution is necessary. In order to change the basis of society from a production for profit to a production for use one, the workers themselves must first have the revolutionary outlook. No amount of Capitalist evolution can bring the change to Socialism that is necessary to free the workers. Capitalism has the seeds of its own destruction, but the workers must be the seeds. Lewis H. Morgan, in his “Ancient Society,” after a life study of the development of human society, came to conclusions similar to Marx in quite an independent manner. He says (p. 562) :

“The dissolution of society bids fair to become the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim; because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending. It will be a revival in a higher form of the liberty, equality and fraternity, of the ancient gentes.”

Such conclusions the Socialist can endorse. From our own platform, and through our literature, can be obtained all the knowledge required by the workers for the establishment of that higher form of society. Time and truth will tell without empty slogans, or vote-catching reforms, but with the beacon-light of science we illuminate the road to Socialism.

W. E. MacHaffie

After Darwin (1998)

Theatre Review from the October 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Darwin by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Hampstead Theatre.

Timberlake Wertenbaker, perhaps best known for her inspirational play about the transportation of prisoners to Australia, Our Country’s Good, now offers After Darwin, another drama set mainly in the 19th century. I say “mainly” because Wertenbaker both follows Darwin’s famous voyage on the Beagle—noting the cataclysmic effects of his discoveries on the ship’s captain, FitzRoy, a man of absolute religious conviction—and she also offers these insights as scenes from a play which we see in rehearsal in contemporary Britain.

The play abounds in irony and paradox. FitzRoy is scrupulous in his precise, scientific observations, but cannot accept the validity of Darwin’s observations and inferences, because they undermine the basis of his belief in God. Later, however, he was to become one of the founding fathers of the modern science of meteorology. And he it was who named those familiar weather zones around Britain: Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, etc. By comparison Darwin’s own observations are often short on facts and full of value judgments. Moreover, when faced with evidence pointing to the evolution of species he is careful not to place himself in an exposed, heretical position. Rather he uses the discoveries of other scientists as props and supports. FitzRoy, who is clear that the nature of human kind has been fixed immutably by God, nevertheless believes that the “poor wretches” he finds in distant parts of South America, are capable of infinite adaptability. The Beagle carries sets of exotic cutlery, embroidered antimacassars, copies of novels of Jane Austen, etc, which will be used in an attempt to resocialise the natives. Darwin is hot on the fight against slavery, but indifferent to the native people he confronts seeing them as “abject, filthy and ugly”. When reminded by FitzRoy that they are human beings, Darwin retorts, “I feel closer to these beetles.”

The actor we see playing Darwin turns out to be a disingenuous, feckless rogue, whose behaviour nicely demonstrates the absurdity, not to mention the dangers, of social behaviour which is underpinned by the idea of “the survival of the fittest”. He wishes to abandon the play in favour of appearing in a film of stupendous crassness. He claims he is thus “adapting to his environment” the better to survive. On the other hand the actor playing FitzRoy chooses to be principled, loyal and dependable.

Does Timberlake wish us to take any lessons from this? It is difficult to know. But whatever her intentions by setting the drama as a contemporary play in rehearsal, she leaves the audience wondering about the consequences of applying ideas which seem to have considerable power when explaining the origin of species, as providing a relevant model for social behaviour.

I enjoyed the evening. It is rarely that a play entertains and informs, stimulates and amuses, and leaves its audience with so much to think and talk about later. But I have a cavil, and it is a substantial one.

I can see the attraction of Wertenbaker’s format, especially to a dramatist. Using a rehearsal room performance to inspect both the subject of a drama and the actors’ reaction to it, is an imaginative idea. But if the intention is to look seriously at the world “after Darwin”, perhaps more time needs to be spent looking at the impact of the theory of evolution. What about social engineering, eugenics, the tendency to see human society as a biological system, and to use imperatives derived from the natural sciences to explain social behaviour? Habermas and Marcuse have been keen to point out the dangers of using “scientism” to bolster the ideological basis of capitalism; to reduce matters which properly lie in the province of values, to the merely technical. I would argue that such things are much more central to the world “after Darwin” that those which Wertenbaker seeks to discuss. Wertenbaker’s analysis, enjoyable though it is, is sadly both insufficient and incomplete.

Michael Gill

Materialism and Art. by George Plechanoff (Part 2) (1926)

From the October 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last month.)

PART II.

Let’s go further. In discussing imitation, we mention as directly opposing it the inclination of contradiction.

This should be studied carefully.

We know what an important role the “beginning of antithesis” plays in the feelings of men and animals, according to Darwin.

“Certain states of mind lead, as we have seen in the last chapter, to certain habitual movements which were primarily, or may still be, of service ; and we shall find that when a directly opposite state of mind is induced there is a strong and involuntary tendency to the performance of movements of a directly opposite nature, though these have never been of any service.” [1]

Darwin brings many examples which convincingly show that “with the beginning of antithesis” very much is explained in the expression of feelings. We ask : Is its action visible in the origin and development of customs?

When a dog throws himself on his back before his master, then his pose, combining all that is possible to think of as a contradiction to antagonism or resistance, is an expression of obedience. The beginning of antithesis is obvious here. That is also seen in the case described by the traveller Burton. The negroes of the Vuaniamuazi tribe, passing by the village inhabited by their enemies, carry no weapons, so as not to inspire a quarrel. Nevertheless in their homes, where they are comparatively out of danger, every one of them is armed at least with a club. [2] If, remarks Darwin, a dog turns on its maw, as if to say to his master, “Look, I am your servant,” then the Vuaniamuazi negro, disarming when it seems he should be armed, in the same way tells his enemy : “The thought of self-defence is far away from me; I wholly rely upon your generosity.”

In both cases there is the same meaning and the same expression, i.e., expression through action, directly contrary to the one which would be inevitable in a case where instead of obedience, inimical intentions existed.

In customs serving to express grief there is also evident the beginning of antithesis. According to Du Shalie, in Africa after the death of a man who had occupied an important place in his tribe, many negroes attire themselves in dirty clothes. [3] David and Charles Livingstone say that a negress never leaves home without ornaments except on those occasions when she is clad in mourning. [4] In the negro tribe of Niam Niam, when a relative dies the near survivors cut off their hair, as a sign of grief. [5]

In all those cases the emotion is expressed by an action contrary to the one which is considered useful or agreeable in the normal course of life. And if there are many such cases to be pointed out, then it is clear that a great number of customs owe their origin to the action of the beginning of antithesis. And if this is clear, then we can suppose that the development of our aesthetic conceptions is also accomplished under its influence.

In Senegambi rich negresses wear slippers, which are so small that the foot does not go in fully, with the result that these dames are distinguished by a very awkward gait. But this awkward gait is considered extremely attractive. [6] How could it become such? In order to understand this, it is necessary first of all to remark that the poor, working negresses don’t wear the above-mentioned slippers and have an ordinary gait. It is impossible for them to walk as the rich coquettes do, because it would cause a loss of time. And it is only on account of this distinction that the awkward gait of the rich women is so attractive ; time is not valuable to them, for they are released from the necessity of work. In itself this gait has no sense or value, but becomes significant only in its force of contrast to the gait of the working woman. The beginning of antithesis is obvious here, but notice that it is called forth by the existence of inequality in property among the negroes of Senegambi.

Let’s recall what we said earlier about the morals of the English nobility during the Restoration of the Stuarts, and you will agree that the inclination to contradiction displays a peculiar reaction in the social psychology of Darwin’s beginning of antithesis. Such virtues as industriousness, temperance, strictness of family morals, etc., were very necessary for the bourgeoisie, whose aim was to occupy a much higher social and political position. But were the vices contrary to the bourgeois virtues necessary for the struggling nobility? No, these vices sprang up not as a means of struggle for existence, but as a psychological result of this struggle : hating the revolutionary inclinations of the bourgeoisie, the nobility began to feel a disgust also toward their virtues and therefore began to demonstrate vices just the contrary. The action of the beginning of antithesis also in this case was brought on by social causes.7

It is known from the history of English literature how strongly the psychologic action of the beginning of antithesis, brought about by class-struggle, has reflected itself upon the aesthetic conceptions of the upper classes of society. The English aristocracy who lived in France during their exile, became acquainted with the French theatre and literature which presented a standard quite singular in character, and in its way the product of the refined aristocracy and therefore suited more to their own aristocratic tendencies, than the English literature and theatre of the Elizabethan age. After the Restoration, French tastes began to predominate on the English stage and in English literature. Shakespeare began to be treated as the French treated him afterwards, as strongly holding to classical traditions, that is as a “drunken savage.” His “Romeo and Juliet” was considered then as bad; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream“—”foolish and ridiculous” ; “Henry VIII” was found too “naive”; “Othello”— “mediocre.” [8] Such criticism of Shakespeare does not fully disappear even in the next century, Hume thought that Shakespeare’s genius seemed large in the same way that all ugly, disproportionately built bodies seem large. He blames the dramatist for his total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct.

Pope regretted that Shakespeare wrote for the people and did without the protection of his prince and the encouragement of court. Even the famous Garrick, the worshipper of Shakespeare, tried to ennoble his “idol” in his performance of the grave-digger ; to “King Lear” he added a happy conclusion. But the democratic part of the public in the English theatres continued to feel the deepest devotion to Shakespeare. Garrick confessed that in changing Shakespeare’s plays he risked a wild protest from this part of the public.

His French friends paid him compliments in their letters regarding the “courage” with which he met the danger; “Car je connais la populace Anglaise,” adds one of them. [9]

The licentiousness of manners of the nobility of the second half of the seventeenth century was reflected, as is known, on the English stage where it took indeed extreme measures. According to Edward Engels, comedies written in England between 1660 and 1690 almost all without exception belong to the domain of pornography. [10] After all this we can say a priori, that sooner or later in England, at the beginning of this antithesis, the appearance of dramatic productions whose main aim would be the representation and exaltation of bourgeois virtues was inevitable.

As far as it is known, Hippolyte Taine noticed and more ingeniously than others emphasised the significance of this in the history of aesthetic conceptions. [11]

In his illuminating and interesting “Voyage aux Pyrénnées” he related a talk with one of his “table neighbours,” Mr. Paul, because it adequately expressed the author’s point of view.

“You go to Versailles,” says Mr. Paul, “and are perturbed by the seventeenth century tastes. But cease for a moment to judge from the point of view of your own needs and your own habits. . . . We are right when we are charmed by a wild landscape, as they were right when such a landscape seemed tedious. There was nothing uglier than this mountain for the people of the seventeenth century. [12] It evoked many unpleasant pictures. People who only recently lived through the epoch of Civil Wars, and semi-barbarism, in view of this mountain, called to mind hunger, long rides on horseback under snow and rain, black bread half mixed with husk, served always in dirty, greasy hotels. They were tired of barbarism, just as we are tired of civilisation. These mountains give us a chance of retreat from our pavements, offices and stores. This is the only reason why you like this landscape and if it were not for this reason it would seem to you as ugly as it once seemed to Madame Mentenon.”[13]

We like the wild landscape as a contrast to city views, of which we are tired. City landscapes and trimmed gardens were liked by the people of the seventeenth century as a contrast to a wild site. The action “of the beginning of antithesis” is here undoubtedly patent. But just because there is no doubt, it clearly shows us to what extent psychological laws can serve as a source of explanation of the history of ideology in general and of the history of aesthetics in particular. The beginning of antithesis played an important role in the psychology of the people of the seventeenth century, as it plays an important role in the psychology of contemporaries. Why then are our aesthetic tastes contrary to the tastes of the seventeenth century? Because we live in an environment entirely different. Therefore we come to the known conclusion : the psychological nature of man makes it so that he can have aesthetic conceptions, and that Darwin’s beginning of antithesis (Hegel’s “contradiction”) plays an immense role, to this time unappreciated in the mechanism of those conceptions. But why does the given man have only these and not other tastes ; why does he like only these and not other things?—this depends upon his environment. The illustration given by Taine also shows well the character of those conditions; how the social conditions determine the nature and course of man’s culture.

The illustration by Taine shows social conditions, as a cause that makes the fundamental laws of our psychology, but in this illustration the discourse is only about our relations to the impressions made by nature. But the fact is that the influence of such impressions changes in accordance with our own relations to the change in nature, and our own relationship is determined by the course of development of our social culture. As an example Taine gives a landscape. It is to be remarked that in the history of painting a landscape in general takes a place far from perpetual. Michel Angelo and his contemporaries neglected it. It developed in Italy only at the end of the Renaissance, at the moment of its decay. Also for the French artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth century it had no substantial meaning. In the nineteenth century this is abruptly changed; the landscape is beginning to be esteemed for the sake of a landscape, and such young painters as Fleur, Kaba, Th. Reausseau seek for inspiration at the bosom of nature, in the outskirts of Paris, in Fauntenebleau, and in Medon; the possibility of such inspiration was not suspected by the painters at the time of Le Brens and Bouche. Why? Because the social conditions of France changed and as a result the psychology of the French changed. And in various epochs of social development man gets for nature different impressions, for he looks upon them from different points of view.

The action of general laws on the psychical nature of man do not cease, of course, with only those epochs. But, as in various epochs, in consequence of variety in social relations, since different materials come into human minds, it is not strange that the results of its finish are different.

1 “Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.” (P. 50.)

2 Voyage aux grands lacs de l’Afrique orientale, Paris, 1862. (P. 610.)

3 Voyage and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. (P. 268.)

4 Exploration du Zambèse et de ses affluents, Paris, 1866. (P. 109.)

5 Schweinfurth; In the Heart of Africa v 2 (P. 33.)

6 L. J. B. Berenger-Ferand. Les peuplades de la Sénégambie. Paris, 1879. (P. 11.)

7 It is necessary also to remark that only because of their social position the nobility could put their brilliant vices against the common virtues of the bourgeoisie. In the psychology of the struggling peasantry or proletarian class the action of the beginning of antithesis could have been displayed in the same fashion.

8 Beljam. (Pp 40-41.) Compare Tains. (Pp. 508-512.)

9 About this see an interesting investigation by J. J. Jusserand. ”Shakespeare sous l’ancien regime.” 1698. (Pp. 247-248.)

10 Geschichte der englischen Litteratur. 3 Auflage, Leipzig, 1897. (S. 264.)

11 Tarde had a wonderful occasion to examine the psychological action of this beginning in his book, “L’Opposition universelle, essai d’une théorie des Contraries,” which came out in 1897. But for some reason he did not make use of it, and limited it with only few remarks about the indicated action. It is true, Tarde says, (P. 245) that his book is not a sociological treatise, but even in a treatise especially devoted to sociology, he certainly could not have mastered this subject had he not gotten rid of his idealistic view.

12 We must have in mind that the conversation is carried on in the Pyrenees.

13 Voyage aux Pyrénées cinquieme edition. Paris, 1867.

Translated for “Modern Quarterly” by Bessie Peretz.

(To be concluded).

Population and Poverty. (1926)

From the April 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

A debate took place recently in South London between an alleged Communist and a champion of the New Generation League on the question, “Is Birth Control Necessary for the Abolition of Poverty?” This is not a report thereof, but an attempt to put before our readers the Socialist view of the question raised.

The speaker in the affirmative was decidedly modest in his claims. He did not assert that Birth Control would abolish poverty, or even ameliorate it, but simply that poverty could not be abolished without it. He advanced, of course, the time-worn dogma that population tends to press upon means of subsistence, no matter what the latter may be, and left his audience to conclude that poverty was a result of this pressure and, therefore, short of artificial control of births, unavoidable. He further attached great importance to the facts that Marx formed his opinions prior to the publication of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” (based upon Malthus) and was, moreover, a townsman ignorant of agriculture and its limited possibilities.

Let us examine these claims. In the first place poverty is not merely a relative term, it is a description of the condition of a particular class in society, namely, the working class, i.e., the class which produces the antithesis of poverty, which is wealth. This wealth is enjoyed by a comparatively small section of the community, namely, the capitalist, or master, class, who own the material means by which the workers produce it. In this ownership is to be found the cause of their social position and not in the size of their families. Broadly speaking, it is true that the workers have more numerous progeny than their masters, but it is equally true that no amount of abstinence from the function of procreation will make a man a millionaire. Something more is necessary, i.e., the exploitation of social labour.

This fact is ignored by the Malthusian. He talks imposingly about “the struggle for existence” (a term which he never accurately defines), but omits to mention that before the struggle for wealth can commence, it has to be produced by some measure of co-operation. Every historical form of society has involved the co-operative efforts of the labourers as an element in its economic basis. The ancient empires, founded on chattel-slavery, the feudal kingdoms of the middle ages resting on serfdom, as well as the capitalist régime of to-day based upon wage-labour, could not conceivably have existed if the productivity of the workers’ labour had not exceeded their necessary consumption.

The pressure of the workers upon their means of subsistence is thus the product not of “nature” but of society under certain conditions in the course of its development. In other words, the contrast between wealth and poverty is of historical origin and came into existence only when, by dint of labour, mankind had acquired a degree of control over nature’s supply of the means of subsistence sufficient to permit of the existence of an idle class.

Under pre-historical conditions, a primitive form of Communism existed. The small, narrow social groups of those days knew no class distinctions. If nature was niggardly, all suffered ; if generous all benefited. Property rights as understood to-day did not exist. Mankind exploited nature as their state of development permitted, with none but the savage beasts to say them nay. The basis of the group was kinship, i.e., descent from a common ancestor. Under Communism men advanced from the lowest depths of savagery to the threshold of civilisation. They discovered fire, invented the bow and arrow, and the arts of smelting and pottery-making, domesticated animals and initiated horticulture. They laid, in fact, the ground-work for all subsequent progress.

Tribal communism, however, broke up with the advance of chattel-slavery, an institution, the origin of which affords an interesting refutation of Malthusianism. In extremely primitive times, groups engaged in warfare among other objects for women to add to the numbers of their tribe ; the men they slew. With the increase of the fruits of labour, however, a use was discovered for the male captives of war as well. They became slaves of their conquerors, and the wealth of a Roman patrician was in proportion, not to the smallness of his household, indeed, but, on the contrary, to the numbers of these slaves who constituted its most important element. For their maintenance he was responsible just as the farmer is responsible for his cattle ; but the surplus-product of their labour was the source of his wealth, and the same principle has applied under various forms to this day. The wealth of the feudal lord was in proportion to the number of his tenants, while the modern financial magnate controls huge industrial armies.

On the other hand the avowed birth-controlling peasants of France “enjoy a standard of life lower than that of the wage-slaves of Britain and America; a fact which is due, not to any niggardliness of nature in France, but to the antiquated methods of exploitation upon which its rulers depend.

The Malthusian claims that this is due to the absence of coal in France. He forgets that if this is true then the presence of coal would have led to similar results as in England, i.e., a higher degree of exploitation and unemployment !

It is clear in any case that the progress of industry and, consequently, in the long run the progress of society, depends upon the further development of social labour. The restriction of population can at best play but a negative part in this progress, while, pushed to extremes, it can only produce stagnation. Modern industrial development necessitates the existing population with its massing of the workers in highly organised productive centres. As a remedy for poverty, therefore, birth control is a policy of reaction and despair, whatever its value may be from a hygienic point of view.

To recapitulate, present poverty is due to capitalism, i.e., to the monopoly by a diminishing class of the fruits of social effort. It can be abolished so soon as the class which suffers from it realises the cause of it and removes that cause. When the workers organise as a class, seize political power, and convert the means of living into the common property of all, then and then only will class distinctions and their social and economic accompaniments disappear.

The struggle between the capitalists over the surplus wealth wrung from their slaves on the one hand and the struggle between the slaves for jobs on the other are the fruits of immature development. They will vanish when in the struggle between these two classes as a whole, the workers, are victorious. Production will then be carried on in conscious co-operation in order to secure the fullest possible development for every individual.

The limits of productive possibility no one can foresee, and it behoves the workers in their own interests to study existing conditions for the solution of existing problems. Mathematical calculations with regard to the number of elephants per square yard likely to result from unchecked multiplication may be ingenious and even exciting to an overheated imagination, but they have no bearing upon the problem of poverty. As for Marx, whatever his views on Darwin may have been, he was able to expose Malthus for the plagiarist he was (see footnote 1 to page 345, “Capital,” Sonnenschein edition).

Eric Boden