Re: Darwinism=Capitalism

From: Michael Ragland (ragland66_at_webtv.net)
Date: 10/20/04 

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:05:25 +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:

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?

LK:
I will eloborate on this later.

MR:
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.

LK:
Of course not.

MR:
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?

LK:
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.

MR:
Agree but they are are in need of improvement.

LK:
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?

LK:
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.

MR:
Well its vomit over the damn now.

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

LK:
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.

MR:
Well that makes it all the more difficult doesn't it? I agree a truly
rational belief is bound to fail. We need to properly balance man's
rationality and irrationality in proportion so they are not a threat to
each other as the Enlightenment Movement or Age of Reason focused to
heavily on man's rationality and this provoked a response from the
Romanticist movement which focused on and glorified man's irrationality.
It may sound like a contradiction but to truly have rationality you have
to take into account man's greater natural propensity for irrationality.
If you don't you do so at your own peril and the peril of civilization.
Unfortunately, many (if not most) beliefs are irrational. This does not
mean, however, they are not beliefs.
Many beliefs do require a leap of faith and that is precisely why they
are irrational. No scientific evidence is required for such beliefs.
Christianity is based on such irrational beliefs. The Nazi German idea
of Jews being a bacillus and a parasitic host in the body of other
nations is based on a leap of faith and no scientifc evidence. One can
discuss how such a "leap of faith" occured but it is nevertheless a leap
of faith.

MR:
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.

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

MR:
You sound more like a moral philosopher than a Darwinian evolutionist.

MR:
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.

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

MR:
I see these general sentiments of right and wrong as being based on
cultural evolution e.g. religion. At various times in human history
religion itself has become a victim of Darwinian evolution e.g.
religious wars. Look at the Middle East where many Islamic clerics
condone extreme violence against Westerners or anybody who stands in the
way of Jihad. Look at the general pathetic response of Nazi Germany's
churches to the Holocaust and the Vatican's silence on it.

MR:
These are social/religious
concepts which don't reflect evolutionary reality.
LK:
Yes, the external components. Based on authority and belief.

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

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

MR:
Agree.

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

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

MR:
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.

LK:
A rather special metafor!

MR:
LOL!

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.

LK:
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.

LK:
I am afraid Lenin was not much better.

MR:
True.

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?

LK:
This will be another book.

MR:
LOL!

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.

LK:
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.

LK:
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.

MR:
I will but I would ask just how common ideal free distribution is? Is it
practical or just another theory among theories or limited on a small
scale.

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.

LK:
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.

MR:
That's a big problem everywhere it seems. Special interests groups and
the government caves into them resulting in the whole society being
damaged somewhat. What the special interests groups or the government
needs to do is put its foot down and say, "Look, you special interest
groups can't have everything you want. There is going to have to be
compromises."

MR:
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.

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

MR:
Address it later if you have the chance.

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.

MR:
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.

LK:
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.

MR:
Clever Lennart. Are you saying I'm insincere or that I'm aiming at an
unattainable perfection?

LK:
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:
I don't think there is or ever will be such a thing as utopia. The
closest I've come to reading about it is Buddhist Monks who reach
Nirvana which from what I understand is essentially an extinguishing of
one's self. And that, assuming it exists, takes asceticism and years of
training. So I don't believe in utopia but I do believe through genetic
engineering and other biotechnologies the longterm "possibility" of
improving the human species is possible. Of course, individuals can
experience moments of utopia even if the world they live in is pretty
shitty.

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.

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

MR:
Yes but it is more or less a daily struggle.

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.

LK:
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

"It's uncertain whether intelligence has any long term survival value.
Bacteria do quite well with it."

Stephen Hawking

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