Re: Darwinism=Capitalism

From: Lennart Kiil (kiilx_at_xtele2adsl.dk)
Date: 10/18/04 

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 21:54:54 +0000 (UTC)

> First of all, I would like to thank you Michael for posting many
> interesting things here, though I disagree with most of it.
> LK:
>
> MR:
> You're welcome. I disagree with much of what I write too. To use an
> analogy it is like I'm pretending to be a primitive tree shrew and
> attempting to predict what would ultimately became scientifically and
> technologically developed Homo Sapiens. In other words my current
> evolution of a Homo Sapien (my needs, desires, instincts, intelligence,
> ability, etc.) is in no way reflective of the projections I paint of
> future "human evolution". Nobody has a crystal ball and so ultimately
> nobody knows exactly what future human evolution will be like. Opinions
> are like assholes, everybody has one.

Agreed.

> LK:
> A claim of general group superiority based on biology and evolutionary
> theory is bound to fail as those who truly understands evolution would
> know. On a moral level you cannot claim superiority without subverting
> your stance. Only through doing good you can be superior.
>
> MR:
> I agree with you a claim of general group superiority based on biology
> and evolutionary theory is bound to fail as those who truly understand
> evolution would know. But this is according to Darwin's theories of
> evolution and who is to say Darwin is the beginning and the end of
> understanding human evolution?

I will eloborate on this later.

> Darwin's theories of evolution didn't
> incorporate Mendelian genetics, random genetic drift, kin selection,
> group selection, etc. Now I'm not saying this means Darwin's theories
> have been invalidated as a result. Indeed, they have been proven in
> experiments. And to the best of my knowledge Mendelian genetics and
> random genetic drift aren't incompatible with Darwin's theories. Kin
> selection, however, appears to have a basis in some insect populations.
> Hamilton is famous for this and developing an equation for it. Mr. Edser
> finds no scientific-empirical basis for it. Nevertheless, kin selection
> was not one of Darwin's theories on evolution although I believe he
> commented on the phenomenon. Both kin selection and group selection have
> been extended to human evolution by some scientists. Are they as
> scientifically validated as Darwin's theory of natural selection
> (individual selection), sexual selection, etc.? No, they aren't. They
> are hypotheses rather than theories. All I'm saying is just because
> Darwin didn't include group selection in his theories of evolution
> doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Of course not.

> For example, in many societies there is
> stratification along the lines of class. There is the extremely wealthy
> ruling elite, the upper-class, upper-middle class, middle-class, lower
> middle-class and the poor. Is this stratification solely a result of
> individual selection or is it possible there is a basis for group
> selection?

Well, theoretically there is a potential for group selection to work here.
This is almost the same discussion I had with Mr. Tyler.
If, and only if, there is a significant correlation between genetic make-ups
and these cultural groups group selection could work.

> You write, "A claim of general group superiority based on biology and
> evolutionary theory is bound to fail as those who truly understands
> evolution would know. On a moral level you cannot claim superiority
> without subverting your stance. Only through doing good you can be
> superior." Throughout recorded human civilization there have been ruling
> elites and often there is a claim of general group superiority. The Nazi
> Germans were one example who considered Germans superior as a group to
> others. In the American Native Americans were considered an inferior
> group by European Americans who considered themselves a superior group.
> In America African-American slaves were considered an inferior group and
> European Americans a superior group. The Spanierds Pizzarro and Cortez
> considered the Incas and Aztecs as inferior groups and Spanierds as a
> superior group. The British considered Indians an inferior group and the
> British a superior group. The French, Belgians, British, German, etc.
> who colonized Africa considered the Africans an inferior group and their
> own European nationalities superior groups. The Japanese consider the
> Ainu as an inferior group and themselves a superior group. I could go on
> if I knew more history. Have I made my point?

My point is, they were all wrong, at the scientific and the moral level. Of
course you can be wrong about something, and still, in your own delussion
use it as a justification for your actions. Sometimes, unfortunately might
alone makes right, because those with might succed in rationalizing things,
not in the absolute sense but just in their own minds.

> Is a belief in group superiority bound to fail if one understands
> evolution?

A truly rational belief is bound to fail. But of course most beliefs are not
rational. Then we would not call them beliefs. There is a leap of faith in
believing.

> It's been going on for thousands of years of recorded human
> history and continues to this day. Is it bound to fail? Perhaps. It may
> contribute to our extinction as a species e.g. no descendants. Is it
> apart of evolution? Yes, it is. Now maybe this generally fits in with
> Darwin's theories of evolution and if so my apologies to the bearded
> man. My point is that group selection and groups believing they are
> superior to others is a part of evolution.

The sentiment yes. But sentiments are often eluding truth.
Do not worry I will write a book on this later.

> You write, "On a moral level you cannot claim superiority without
> subverting your stance. Only through doing good you can be superior."
> Ideally, this is true but Darwinian evolution is not MORAL. It has
> nothing to do with being moral or good.

Agreed. Though evolution has provided us with some general sentiments to as
what is right and wrong. These are the internal components to moral.

> These are social/religious
> concepts which don't reflect evolutionary reality.

Yes, the external components. Based on authority and belief.

> Darwin emphasizes the
> competition and struggle for life among organisms and there is no
> morality, goodness, compassion, etc. in these evolutionary processes.

As in capitalism, this is why I see capitalism as an extension of natures
principles. It just *IS*. It does not care.

> You write, "Only through doing good you can be superior." It depends on
> what your definition of superior is.

Indeed. In this context I was referring to moral superiority.

> For the ruling elites wealth is
> superior and the more wealth you have the more power you have and power
> is superior. And the more power you have the more governments will
> collude with you to tear down the Amazon and displace thousands of
> people, exploit natural resources at the expense of indigenous people's
> health and wellbeing, overfish and deplete the oceans of fish stock,
> build dams displacing thousands of people, etc. At the higher levels of
> government big business and government are virtually indistiguishable to
> each other. Governments are like whores who spread their legs for big
> business and then are given their payment for their colluding services.

A rather special metafor!

> MR:
> What is constructivism and the "Strong Programme"?

LK:
Social constructivism is the idea the group power relationsships more than
accordance to reality shapes scientific theories. Extrem social
constructivism regards reality itself to be a social construction. The
"Strong Programme" is a kind of social constructivism.

>
> LK:
> About the second piece:
> Michael why are you posting a Marxist manifest here in this newsgroup?
>
> MR:
> Good question. The headline of my post was does Darwinism=Capitalism? I
> prefaced the article by stating I didn't think there were any political
> solutions but I thought the author made some valid points regarding
> capitalism.
> IMHO, capitalism is the economic form of Darwinism.
>
> LK:
> I agree, but this is simply because capitalism is an extension of
> natures own system for exchanging resources efficiently. If you are
> looking for a political system extending nature go for libertarianism or
> anarcho-capitalism.
>
> MR:
> I don't think capitalism is an extension of natures own system for
> exchanging resources efficiently. I definitely agree with you it is an
> extension of nature or Darwinian evolution but I think it is
> maladaptive. The capitalist system is a relatively recent phenomenon
> fueled by the Industrial Revolution. Before that most humans were
> agrarian and before that hunter gatherers. We have genetically carried
> our primitive aggressive instincts from the ancient time we were hunter
> gatheres through the agrarian revolution through the industrial
> revolution to the present biotechnology, computer, etc. revolutions we
> are in now. Capitalism only results in a system for exchanging resources
> efficiently in certain contexts. For example, I live in the U.S. and at
> least 50% of what is sold here is made in China. Many leather goods are
> made in India. That's a system of efficient exchange of resources...I
> guess. China and India must get some money out of it but I doubt many
> American products are sold in China or India. If you want almost any
> type of food or product there is a store in your town or nearby in
> Denmark where you can get it. An efficient exchange of resources. But
> you have to have money and much of the world doesn't have hardly any
> money at all let alone nice big airconditioned supermarkets and malls
> to shop in. Capitalism results in an efficient exchange of resources but
> it is skewed. Depending on what neighborhood you live in, what country
> you live in there may not be an efficient exchange of resources. I'm not
> blaming capitalism totally for this state of affairs but there is a
> gross unequal distribution of wealth in the world. The vast majority of
> wealth or capital is for the most part concentrated in the hands of a
> tiny percentage of people. It's not that there isn't enough wealth for
> the world but how it is prioritized. Look at the billions of dollars
> spent so far on the U.S. government war in Iraq. I think its over two
> hundred billion. Before this war if you had asked for money for
> education, police, nurses, etc. you would have been told state budgets
> were bleeding. But all of a sudden the federal government (which
> provides monies to states) spends over two hundred billion dollars on a
> botched insane war in Iraq.

Without getting into details I largely agree.

>
> MR:
> You write, "Currently it is fashionable to try to reduce every theory
> about the world to a mere reflection of group power relationships, this
> of course is a kind of Marxism." Is it?
>
> LK:
> Yes it is. Though modified and recodified.
>
> MR:
> I don't think so. I think if Marxism had never existed there would be
> theories about the world being a reflection of group power
> relationships. As a matter of fact, the theory of Marxism itself
> reflected group power relationships such as when the Bolshevik
> Revolution occured. The Czar ruling elite was seen in a group power
> relationship. When Stalin took over his rule constituted a group power
> elite which terrorized the average Russian, Ukrainians, Jews.

I am afraid Lenin was not much better.

> MR:
> Certainly Marxism takes that
> position between capital and labour. I think, however, one doesn't have
> to be a genius to realize there are ruling classes or elites who
> dominate capital and impose their projects on the developed and
> developing world, displacing hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples
> in the latter. For example, "Concerns what Marx called "original
> accumulation". This is where the commodity form incorporates previously
> non-commodified goods and services into the reaches of capital, for
> example through privatisation and commercialisation, in some cases
> violently forcing people off the land (as in the enclosure movement in
> England, and the new enclosures associated with the "opening" of the
> Amazon; displacing of populations to construct dams, etc.). You are
> aware the Amazon is being destroyed and people are being forced off
> their land and in some cases killed aren't you? You're aware a huge dam
> which involved Aker RGI displaced thousands of Indians?
>
> LK:
> No I was not, and I never claimed that unchecked capitalism is doing
> good to our world.
>
> MR:
>No, you didn't. So what do you think the possible solutions are, if any?

This will be another book.

> MR:
> The second set of conditions relates to the capitalist production
> process, where much of the recent evidence shows that in the brave new
> world of high-technology, knowledge based capital, instead of a leisure
> society being created, the pattern is one of intensification of work,
> longer working hours and a rising rate of exploitation of labour on the
> one hand, and mass unemployment and marginalization on the other." This
> can even be seen in the U.S. where migrant workers are forced to work
> long hours in unsafe conditions.
> Or the apparent fact the 1996 UNDP Development Report noted that 358
> billionares had combined assets that exceeded the total annual income of
> 45 percent of the world's population, that is 3.2 billion people. Makes
> me want to vomit. Some of these billionares have gigantic mansions. How
> many toilets does it take to *** in? How many bedrooms to sleep in? How
> many baths to bathe in? How many kitchens to cook in? Not only that some
> own more than one mansion. I see they earned it fair and square and they
> have the right to use their money any way they see fit. True. But it
> still shows the gross unequal distribution of wealth in the world. And
> of course the rich don't have to pay any taxes because they have
> shelters like the Cayman
> Islands or Switzerland.

I agree with you. It is absurd.

> LK:
> Distributive justice is not found either in nature or in capitalism, but
> ideal free distribution is.
>
> MR:
> LOL! That's like saying "Natural green clouds are not found in nature
> but ideally you can imagine natural green clouds". You're a trip
> Lennart. Yes, you are right. That's why, although it presently sounds
> like science fiction, I'm such a big advocate of animal research and
> genetic engineering. I think by only gradually changing our nature can
> we possibly accomplish distributive justice among other things.

It would have been a Dr. Panglossian joke if it had not been that 'ideal
free distribution' is a real term from ecology. It is not about the
distribution of goods, but about the distribution of entrepeneurship on
niches. I think you entirely misunderstood the whole sentence. Look it up.

> LK:
> Now I'm not a pinko commie Lennart. Why? Because it is a pipedream. The
> idea of the worker owning and controlling the means of production and an
> equal society just won't work. Darwin stressed the importance of
> competition in his theory of natural selection and sexual selection. In
> such Darwinian evolutionary givens there can be no equality. Those males
> with the most capital, natural resources, aggressiveness and
> ornamentation will be in a superior position to secure the most
> attractive females and hold power. There are exceptions to this rule and
> even some women who hold superior rank and wield signifigant power.
> Overall, however, whether it be transnational corporations or
> governments it is men who run the show.
>
> LK:
> Yes, for now.
> Feminism has been the most succesful social movement for a long time
> now. And as we further move the obligation to support women and children
> towards the state away from the individual man, something like equality
> will come around, not reflecting a set of natural abilities or, indeed,
> needs, but simply the totalitarian idea of equality.
>
> MR:
> Well that sounds like you don't like the idea too much.

I like the idea, at least as it was before. Now unfortunately it has turned
into groupthink.
Of course feminism has a lot of work to do many places in the world. But in
Denmark, and other places I supose, they are just whining and trying to
secure further special priviliges for woman as a group. Rights should apply
to individuals not to gropus.

> I disagree. Even
> if the obligation to support women and children towards the state away
> from the individual man increases the underlying biology between the
> sexes will insure that men continue to weild most of the power in the
> world. What you referring to is a social and economic trend fueled in
> part by technological changes. It does not change the underlying biology
> between the sexes. That is why there is no such thing as the
> totalitarian idea of equality. I don't much care either how modern
> technology has ripped away the fabric of being a natural human being but
> there is nothing which can be done about it.

I cannot go into this now, I simply do not have the time, sorry.

> MR:
> I don't know what Darwin would have to say that most human societies in
> the modern world today (at least in terms of the upper echelons of
> transnational and governmental power) are patriarchal in nature.
> Certainly in the past there have been some matriarchal societies and
> maybe there are even a few today but it seems the evolutionary trend in
> humans has been patriarchy. I think that is the way in many primates
> although I could be wrong but certainly the apes and chimpanzee. The
> Bonobo may be an exception.
>
> LK:
> Everybody wants to be powerful, male or female. In almost all mammals
> there has been higher reproductive advantages for males than for females
> connected with being powerful, but under special circumstances the trend
> reverses for example in hyenas.
>
> MR:
> I read something strange about the hyenas genitals. I'll have to check
> the scavengers out again.

Yeah, check them out, interesting creatures.

> LK:
> The great disparity between the concentrated wealth in the world on the
> one hand and the vast majority of the world which lives in poverty
> disturbs me. That's why I posted a Marxist manifest. As I stated I
> believe capitalism is an economic form of Darwinism.
> There has never
> been a truly socialist society.
>
> MR:
> And there never will be, because after every unsuccesful try would-be
> socialists will claim "but, there has never been a TRULY socialist
> society." again and again and again.
>
> LK:
> Clever Lennart. Are you saying I'm insincere or that I'm aiming at an
> unattainable perfection?

I do not know about you, but generally Utopia is a very restrictive place
for those who do not find it to be utopia. whose utopia, whose values.
forget utopia and move on.

> MR:
> Instead there is incessant competition
> between market forces. There is the stock exchange. There are casinos
> and gambling. There must be thirty shows on television on how to become
> "rich". There must be thousands of spam get rich schemes. Everywhere you
> go there is a c'mon on how you can save more money so you can lose
> money. There are commercials on TV selling worthless "vitamins" to
> prevent prostate cancer or increase your libido. Businessmen preachers
> asking you to donate a thousands dollar pledge. American society is
> drenched in consumerism and materialism and people preying on others to
> make money. It is sickening and in my view unhealthy. If all of this is
> a form of Darwinism it needs to go into the dustbin of evolutionary
> history.
>
> LK:
> Well, I think it should be viewed in the light of the alternatives.
>
> MR:
> I'm trying to find those but I'm not really trying hard enough. My
> circumstances limit me. In the past I've blown a few grand opportunities
> and 15 years later it is still painful to think about. When your a
> person with a psychiatric disability its hard to convey to a "normal
> well adjusted" person you've never had a happy day in your entire adult
> life. You take one drug after another but nothing changes.

You would be surprised how many there are. At least you seem to have come to
terms with it.

> MR:
> Further, "Perhaps the most general of these big issues concern the role
> of education and wider political practices to form an ethical
> counter-hegemony that is appropriate to the conditions of the late
> twentieth century. Part of this task involves the study of political
> economy so that, for example, we can better investigate and critique the
> form of transformations associated with the globalisation of
> unsustainable production and consumption patterns, and the
> intensification of what Walter Benjamin once called the "dream-world of
> mass culture", that is the saturation of our symbolic world and forms of
> consciousness with the cornucopia of consumerism. In this sense it is
> not just the social relations of production, but also the atomised forms
> of social imagination that are fetters on human emancipation in
> capitalism.[30] Left thinkers need to develop a critique of what Raymond
> Williams once called the "magic system" of capitalist advertising and TV
> and those forms of cultural representation that produce a commodified
> dreamlike mental condition, that is they project a form of experience
> that is individualised and atomised.[31] In other words, and following
> the example of Gramsci, in order to promote the emergence of collective
> consciousness left intellectuals should seek to remobilise a critique of
> contemporary political and cultural institutions and re-establish the
> link in popular consciousness between the question of consumption and
> deepening exploitation, commodification and alienation in social
> relations, and the reshaping of the hierarchy and nature of state forms.
> We need to pose questions such as: What do these changes mean for the
> constitution of social life in lived communities? Put differently, what
> are the socio-ecological limits to existing patterns of power,
> production and consumption? In this regard, there is a need to show how
> far and in what ways there has been a depletion of the ethical dimension
> of political and economic life and to link this to the economism of
> prevailing perspectives and forces in the global political economy. We
> need to show how the social Darwinist tendencies are associated with
> growing social polarisation and widening inequality both within and
> across state forms, in an era of when financial power and Mammon seem to
> predominate in defining economic alternatives and systems of political
> accountability and representation."
>
> LK:
> It says "promote the emergence of collective consciousness". Why will
> these totalitarians not read Orwells 1984 or Poppers The free world and
> its enemies.
>
> MR:
> I stated I believed the article made some valid points about capitalism.
> I didn't say I agreed with everything they stated and made it clear I
> didn't think there was a political solution to the problems of
> capitalism. Yes, the phrase "collective consciousness" is totalitarian
> and historically communist societies have been totalitarian.

I will let this stand.

> MR:
> Do you disagree with any of this Lennart?
>
> MR:
> I disagree with the statement, "One key constraint on this potential is
> perhaps that our political imaginations may still be trapped in an
> ontology of world order that equates political action with
> territorialism and the state - although the constraints and
> opportunities of a more economically globalised world order are
> increasingly palpable."
>
> LK:
> Well I agree with you in disagreeing with that.
>
> MR:
> I don't think the constraints
> and opportunities of a more economically globalized world order are
> increasingly palpable. I certainly do sympathize, however, with the
> statement, "Put differently, what are the socio-ecological limits to
> existing patterns of power, production and consumption? In this regard,
> there is a need to show how far and in what ways there has been a
> depletion of the ethical dimension of political and economic life and to
> link this to the economism of prevailing perspectives and forces in the
> global political economy. We need to show how the social Darwinist
> tendencies are associated with growing social polarisation and widening
> inequality both within and across state forms, in an era of when
> financial power and Mammon seem to predominate in defining economic
> alternatives and systems of political accountability and
> representation."
>
> LK:
> What these people basically fails to see is that culture is not
> independent of nature.
> We cannot go from is to ought without commiting a phallacy that reaches
> back to the problem of first principles. But on even more levels we
> cannot go from ideas to reality. Just because you want things to be in
> one way, they will be what the are nonethesame. If you want to solve
> problems you will have to tackle them head on without prejudices.
>
> MR:
> I agree. I have tackled problems in the past without prejudice. Local
> political problems. I was largely successful but I was largely "alone"
> in my activism. Perhaps it doesn't have to be this way but personally I
> found it the most effective.
>
> "It's uncertain whether intelligence has any long term survival value.
> Bacteria do quite well with it."
>
> Stephen Hawking
>
>

Have to go , see you later,
Lennart

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