14. Marxism and Darwinism¶
Core Argument¶
In Chapter 14, "Marxism and Darwinism," the author navigates the fraught relationship between Darwinian evolution and Marxist theory, arguing that while Darwin’s core insights are valid, his theoretical framework is marred by Victorian gradualism and ideological contamination. Darwin’s commitment to the anti-dialectical principle that nature does not make leaps—a philosophical inheritance from his era—has dominated biology ever since. The chapter highlights a corrective in the theory of punctuated equilibria, proposed by palaeontologists Eldredge and Gould, which interprets gaps in the fossil record not as imperfections but as evidence of rapid bursts of change followed by long stasis. Gould points to the Cambrian explosion and the coincidence of geological boundaries with evolutionary turning points as evidence. This model, in which quantitative changes culminate in qualitative leaps, closely approximates a Marxist dialectical view. Gould himself enriches rather than contradicts Darwinism, and the chapter rejects Dawkins’ dismissal of the difference as merely rhetorical: the polemic is against gradualism, not Darwinism itself.
More contentious is Gould’s denial of inherent progress in evolution. He argues the fossil record shows no steady march toward higher forms, and that intelligent life is accidental. The chapter counters with Lerner’s argument that evolution has produced long-term trends toward greater complexity and specificity, culminating in human social evolution. Gould’s rejection stems from the historical misuse of “progress” to justify racism and imperialism; the author suggests replacing the term with “complexity” to avoid teleological implications while acknowledging the undeniable trajectory from single-celled organisms to humans.
Marx himself was critical of Darwin, identifying the influence of Adam Smith and Malthus on his “crude English method.” Darwin’s metaphors of “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest” were distorted by Social Darwinists to justify competitive capitalism, racism, and imperialism, arguing that helping the poor interfered with nature. Marx and Engels rejected Malthusian theory, which falsely claimed population grows geometrically while food grows arithmetically. Engels distinguished two processes Darwin conflated: selection by over-population and selection by adaptation to changed circumstances, noting adaptation can mean regress. History disproves Malthus: European population rose alongside living standards for a millennium, and famines like the Irish potato famine were caused by market policies, not natural laws. Engels argued population pressure is on means of employment, not subsistence. Marx and Engels accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution but considered his method of proof provisional. Engels called Social Darwinism a childish transference of bourgeois competition from society to nature and back again, proving nothing about eternal natural laws.