DISCUSSION QN: QN: Explain the concept of Karl Marx's Evolution Theory

QN: Explain the concept of Karl Marx's Evolution Theory

KARL MARX’S EVOLUTION THEORY

When it comes to Marxism and Science, Karl Marx gives us the core of his theory, “Darwin’s [Origin of Species] is very important and provides me with the basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.”¹

While Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were developing their communistic worldview, Charles Darwin was presenting his theory of evolution and creating quite a stir among the intellectuals of the nineteenth century. Many people perceived that Darwin’s theory could provide the foundation for an entirely materialistic perspective on life. Marx and Engels were among those who recognized the usefulness of Darwin’s theory as just such a foundation for their theory of dialectical materialism.

In a letter to Engels, Marx writes, “During . . . the past four weeks I have read all sorts of things. Among others Darwin’s work on Natural Selection. And though it is written in the crude English style, this is the book which contains the basis in natural science for our view.”

John Hoffman tells us that Marx so admired Darwin’s work that he “sent Darwin a complimentary copy of Volume I of Capital and tried unsuccessfully to dedicate Volume II to him.” Darwin’s wife insisted he not have any relationship with “that atheist,” (http://www.allaboutworldview.org/marxism-and-science.htm).

Evolution is a key term in Marxist theory and like Darwinism and Utopianism it partakes in the legacy of scientific and social thought of the nineteenth century. Some critics observe that, given the nature of the human species, Marx's thought is essentially Utopian. He believed, for example, that human beings (as opposed to other species) should not be burdened by one monotonous form of work, which (as automobile assembly-line workers will tell you) produces not a pride or satisfaction in their work, but rather a sense of alienation. Marx believed (many would say "idealistically") that a person could and should be something of a philosopher in the morning, a gardener in the afternoon, and perhaps a poet in the evenings. Whatever his utopian traits, Marx thought of himself as a social scientist, and his writings illuminate important aspects in the history of human societies, from pre-Christian times to the nature of capitalist society in nineteenth-century England, where his friend and collaborator Frederick Engels managed a factory and recorded documentary evidence on working class life. (Some of Engel's findings make the social ethos in Dickens's novels seem somewhat benign.)

Marx's "materialist conception of history" is based on the following premises: that human beings, in all historical eras, enter into certain productive relations (hunting and gathering food, the relation of lord and serf, the contract between labor and capitalãthat is, certain economic foundations) and that these relations give rise to a certain form of social consciousness. He maintained that: "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. . . ." Perhaps Marx's greatest contribution to modern thought (as opposed to his economic theories which have been subject to various revisions) is his comprehensive investigation into the role of Ideology, or how social being determines consciousness, which results in certain (for the most part unconscious) belief and value systems depending on the particular economic infrastructure pertaining at the time. From a Marxian point of view all cultural artifactsãreligious systems, philosophical positions, ethical valuesãare, naturally enough, products of consciousness and as such are subject to these ideological pressures.

As far as literature is concerned, a Marxian analysis would attempt to look at the work as a highly mediated "reflection" of the social conditions (which are in turn subject to the particular economic structure) of its particular epoch. Good Marxist criticism addresses not only the content of a given text, but also its form. For example, one might argue that Pope's poetry "reflects" (betrays, illustrates, refracts) in its content the stable union of "a bourgeois class in alliance with a bourgeoisified aristocracy," and that its form, the circumscribed, balanced heroic couplet, underlines the equilibrium of such a social structure. To take an extreme contrary example, Eliot's The Waste Land: here the content relates to the spiritual bankruptcy and ennui brought about by the failures of Imperialist capitalism, the end result of which was the catastrophe of the First World War. The form of the poem is also historically determined as a consequence of its content: the fragmented vision of the poem demands new forms to give it expression. The important thing to remember is that neither Pope nor Eliot were consciously trying to mirror the economically determined social structure of their era, but each, a Marxist would argue, are trapped within the ideological confines of their time, (http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/phil2.html).

Evolutionary theory and the political left have had a complicated relationship with one another. The majority of those on the left do not oppose evolution per se, but are critical of interpretations of evolutionary theory that, in their view, overemphasize the role of competition and ignore elements of co-operation in nature such as symbiosis.

Many important political figures on the left have never publicized their views on biology, and so their opinions of evolutionary theory are unknown. To some extent, Marxists are the exception. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels spoke favorably of evolutionary theory, arguing that it mirrored their view of the progress of human society by class struggle and revolution. Most later Marxists agreed with them, but some - particularly those in the early Soviet Union - believed that evolutionary theory conflicted with their economic and social ideals. As a result, they came to support Lamarckism instead, which led to Lysenkoism and caused disastrous agricultural problems, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_theory_and_the_political_left).

Evolutionary influences are especially visible in Marxist legal theory. Because Marx rejected the God of Creation, he was deeply scornful of the doctrine of human sin, and convinced that the evolution of human nature would lead to its absolute perfection. Marx also believed that laws are always the product of human will and, more specifically, the arbitrary will of the ruling social class. He sought, therefore, to displace the ideal of the rule of law and create in its place his own secular utopia on earth. The result? In every communist regime around the world, the attempt to enforce the Marxist dream of equality of wealth has led to gross inequality of power and, to be sure, to governmental oppression and “deification” (not to mention equality of poverty among the masses). Thus, in the twentieth century alone, Marxist-inspired governments killed at least 100 million people. Such a bloodbath is simply the by-product of a naturalistic worldview that deems the most powerful humans to be the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong, (Augusto Zimmermann).

Among other groups on the political left, the most significant work related to evolutionary theory is Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, a book authored by anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin. Kropotkin argued that co-operation and mutual aid are as important in the evolution of the species as competition and mutual strife, if not more so.

Scientific theories of evolution developed at approximately the same time as left-wing political theories. The Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 — 1829) published his theory of evolution in Philosophie Zoologique in 1809. Although he supported the then novel views that the Earth was ancient and organisms evolved through common descent, his mechanism was one of advancement, not natural selection (which would come later). This mechanism of advancement fitted in with cultural ideas of the Great chain of being, up which organisms would advance. While in France these ideas fitted with revolutionary philosophy and were accepted by the scientific establishment, in the United Kingdom such ideas were taken up by socialist agitators who stirred the mob to overthrow the social order and Chartists who even demanded the vote for working men. In England the scientific establishment was dominated by university clergymen who sought to demonstrate divine rule and justify the existing social hierarchy.

Karl Marx (1818 — 1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820 — 1895) published The Communist Manifesto in 1848, with Marx's work Das Kapital published in three volumes in 1867, 1885 and 1894. These works established the principles of communism, which had at its core the evolution of societies by advancement between different states. This, they argued, was caused by class struggle, and the proletariat should co-operate to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

When Karl Marx read Darwin's work on evolution he immediately believed that it supported his worldview and theory of class struggle. Karl Marx sent Darwin an autographed copy of his Das Kapital; Darwin responded with a polite "thank you" letter, but never read the book. Marx believed that Darwin's work both helped to explain the internal struggles of human society, and provided a material explanation for the processes of nature, something which his philosophy was heavily based on. However, he had difficulty accepting the apparent support Darwin's book gave to the theories of Thomas Malthus.

In 1861 Karl Marx wrote to his friend Ferdinand Lassalle, "Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle. ... Despite all shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, ‘teleology’ in natural science is not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained."

The radical economist Herbert Spencer (1820 — 1903) coined the phrase survival of the fittest in his 1851 work Social Statics to describe his revolutionary liberal economic theory, which in 20th century terms would be considered right-wing. Spencer supported the Whig Malthusian argument that programmes to aid the poor, (i.e. the proletariat) did more harm than good, in direct contrast to Tory paternalism, and to communism which advocated "to each according to their needs, from each according to their ability".

Charles Darwin (1809 — 1882) and Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 — 1913) published their theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858, with Darwin's Origin of Species following a year later. Darwin's thesis was that organisms were able to reproduce because of differential survival (ecological selection) or attractiveness (sexual selection).

Spencer became a strong advocate of Darwinism, and the phrase survival of the fittest was included in the 6th edition of The Origin of Species published in 1872. Darwinism thus became associated with Spencer's economics and social philosophy.

Darwin was part of an upper middle-class elite. His cousin, Francis Galton (1822 — 1911) considered the implications of natural selection for human breeding, and developed what he later termed eugenics. This was taken up by others as a pseudoscience and the concepts were introduced that persons of noble blood, and those of Caucasian race should be selected by society to breed over those of lower classes and other races. In terms of class struggle, this could be seen as a form of oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie.

Despite the new emphasis on natural selection, Darwin did, from the 3rd edition of Origins, include certain aspects of Lamarckism since disproven, such as the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The concept of advancement however was also still present, as can be seen in Darwin's 1871 Descent of Man

Darwin's theory was far from complete however, and the period between Darwin's death and the neo-Darwinian modern evolutionary synthesis of the 1920s and 1930s has become known as the eclipse of Darwinism because of the rejection of natural selection in favour of Lamarckian advancement.

Other noted left-wing thinkers in the late 19th century weighed in on the subject including Sir George Archdall Reid (1860 — 1929) in 1896 who published a work The Present Evolution of Man, and the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin (1842 — 1921) in 1902 published Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which particularly opposed the "nature red in tooth and claw" concept.

The great British evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane (1892 —1964) and his esteemed pupil John Maynard Smith, (1920 — 2004) were both communists, and both worked for the British governments during the first and second world wars respectively, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_theory_and_the_political_left.

REFERENCES

Marx, Karl. 1971. Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Tr. S. W. Ryanzanskaya, edited by M. Dobb. London: Lawrence & Whishart.
Skocpol, Theda. 1980. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel M. 1974. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1942),125.

Charles J. McFadden, The Philosophy of Communism (Kenosha, WI: Cross, 1939), 35–6. Also, see Jacques Barzun’s Darwin, Marx and Wagner (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981) for additional material on this point.
John Hoffman, Marxism and the Theory of Praxis (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1976). 69

Karl Marx, Capital, 3 vols. (London, UK: Lawrence and Wishart, 1970), 1:341.
Frederick Engels, Selected Works, 3 vols. (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1950), 2:153, quoted in R.N. Carew Hunt, The Theory and Practice of Communism (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1966), 64.
V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, 45 vols. (Moscow, USSR: Progress Publishers, 1977), 1:142.

Marx, Selected Correspondence, 125.
F.V. Konstantinov, ed., The Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy (Moscow, USSR: Progress Publishers, 1982), 42.
Cited in McFadden, The Philosophy of Communism, 36.
Engels, Dialectics of Nature,13.
Frederick Engels,Ludwig Feuerbach (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1974), 54.
Lenin, Collected Works, 24:54–5.
Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1935), 21.

Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-158591-6.

Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, introduction by Martin Malia (New York: Penguin group, 1998), pg. 35 ISBN 0-451-52710-0

Marx A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

Fifty Key Sociologists: the Formative Theorists, John Scott Irving, 2007, pg 59

"Communicating Ideas: The Politics of Scholarly Publishing", Irving Louis Horowitz, 1986, pg 281

"Transforming Leadership", James MacGregor Burns, 2004, pg 189

"German Realpolitik and American Sociology: an Inquiry Into the Sources and Political Significance of the Sociology of Conflict", James Alfred Aho, 1975, ch. 6 'Lester F. Ward's Sociology of Conflict'

Bourricaud, F. 'The Sociology of Talcott Parsons' Chicago University Press. ISBN 0-226-06756-4. p. 94

Durkheim, E. (1938). The Rules of Sociological Method. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 67.

Livesay, C. Social Inequality: Theories: Weber. Sociology Central. A-Level Sociology Teaching Notes. Retrieved on: 2010-06-20.

Knapp, P. (1994). One World – Many Worlds: Contemporary Sociological Theory (2nd Ed.). Harpercollins College Div, pp. 228–246. Online summary Isbn 978-0-06-501218-7

"Gene Sharp: Author of the nonviolent revolution rulebook". BBC News. 21 February 2011.

Weber, Thomas. Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004^{[page needed]}

"Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in a Revolution". The New York Times. 16 February 2011.

Sears, Alan. (2008) A Good Book, In Theory: A Guide to Theoretical Thinking. North York: Higher Education University of Toronto Press, pg. 34-6.