Huxley versus Kropotkin:
In *Mutual Aid* Peter Kropotkin tried to counter the perversion of
Darwin's theory of natural selection that began with T.H. Huxley.
Whereas Huxley launched the long tradition of interpreting Darwin's
theory of natural selection as survival of the fittest individuals
within a species in mortal combat and combat for sexual partners,
Kropotkin interpreted Darwin's theory in terms of species survival in
which an effective tendency toward what Kropotkin termed "mutual aid"
among species members would enhance the probability of survival of a
species. In Kropotkin's "mutualist" view species that proved "fit" to
survive would tend to be those in which members successfully protected
one another.
Moreover, the probability of an individual member of a species passing
on his or her genes logically depends on the social relations among
members of the species. Relations of physical combat to the death are
only one possible determinant of individual gene survival. Avoiding
mortal combat might be another. And in the end what counts is not only
who propagates, but whose progeny survive. In this light, evolution
would have certainly favored humans with what Thorstein Veblen called
a proclivity to "parental bent." But the Hobbesian view of human
nature that is used to justify an economy of "survival of the fittest"
as the only kind of economy compatible with "human nature" rests on
Huxley's biased interpretation of Darwin. In fact, Huxley's "Social
Darwinist" conclusion that the laws of evolution produced an innate
tendency toward intra-species aggression is no more compatible with
Darwin's theory of natural selection than Kropotkin's "mutualist" view
that human evolution produced an innate tendency toward mutual aid or
solidarity.
---Robin Hahnel, "Is It The Economy, Stupid?"
Bill