On Wed, 2 Feb 2000 01:23:29 -0500 (EST) bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU
(Rakesh Bhandari) writes:
> I am not sure whether I am responding to Sam or Jim F here.
>
> In his theory class struggle plays a role
> >analogous to that of genetic mutations in Darwinian biology -
> >that is as a source of new variations in the relations of
> production.
> >Different outcomes in class struggles produce different variations
> >in the relations of production which are then subjected to
> selection
> >pressures as they compete with other relations of production.
>
> These new variations are fortuitous, unplanned effects of different
> outcomes of various class struggles? Is this what sustains the
> analogy to
> mutation?
I think that the analogy to mutation lies primarily with the the fact that Darwinism draws a distinction between the origins of new variations (i.e. mutations) and their subsequent history when they are subjected to natural selection. In the case of the theory of history, I think that Carling is attempting to draw a similar distinction between the origins of new variations in the relations of production as a result of class struggles and their subsequent history in which they too will undergo selection within a context of competition with rival regimes of production. These new variations may well be planned in their own right but that does not necessarily mean that they will (or will not) ultimately triumph in competion with other types of productive relations.
>Is the reference to Brenner's transition theory implicit
> here in
> particular?
The Thesis of Competitive Primacy is supposed to offer a basis for a general theory of history but Carling in his "Analytical Marxism and Historical Materialism: The Debate on Social Evolution" also attempted to offer ana analysis of the feudalism-capitalism transition that would be consistent with the more general theory of history. Carling sees his approach of drawing a distinction between the origins of variations and their subsequent histories as crucial for building an adequate account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism and he elaborates such a theory which while drawing heavily from Brenner's work is supposed to provide a synthesis of the 'Smithian' approaches pioneered by Paul Sweezy and Immanuel Wallerstein which emphasize the role of the "hidden hand" of market forces in propelling the transition to capitalism with the 'property relations' approaches which were pioneered by such writers as Maurice Dobb and Robert Brenner and which instead placed emphasis on the internal contradictions of feudalism which according to Brenner in part took the form of a demographic boom-bust cycle and which led to intensifying class struggle between landlords and peasants.
For Carling writers like Dobb and Brenner correctly unveiled the forces that created new variations in feudal relations of production including those that evolved into capitalist ones. But Smith and Wallerstein are viewed as having revealed the forces that drove the favorable selection over capitalist relations of production over rival relations including the older feudal ones.
>
>
> >Carling sees the competition between rival modes of production
> >as involving both plain economic competition as well as
> >political-military competition. Also, sometimes countries
> >will adopt a different mode of production because it is
> >perceived as leading to more developed forces of production.
> >One thinks of Japan's decision under the Meiji Restoration to
> >become capitalist in order to avoid cannibalization such as
> >China had suffered.
>
> Well mutations are not intentionally brought about.
I don't think that Carling's theory really requires that new variations be unintentional, what it really requires is recognition of a distinction between the origins of variations and their subsequent selection.
>
>
>
> Carling
> >> > contends that he builds a stronger theoretical case
> >> > by looking towards the later rather than the earlier
> >> > Marx with an eye to Darwin rather than to Adam Smith.
>
> I found rather interesting historian of archaeology Bruce Trigger's
> new
> book on Sociocultural Evolution. He tries to develop a somewhat (and
> quite
> unfashionable) linear theory of hisotry without basing it on the
> assumption
> that progress is somehow inherent in the world as the deist
> philosophers of
> the Enlightenment or 19th century evolutionists believed.
In discussing Carling's selectionist interpretation of historical materialism we should keep in mind the general intellectual context. A number of varied thinkers have attempted to apply quasi-Darwinian selectionist models to the understanding of historical change and social development. F.A. Hayek for instance attempted to develop a theory of social evolution on a selectionist basis. His friend Karl Popper likewise embraced a selectionist approach to social evolution and he went further to develop an evolutionary epistemology on a selectionist basis as well. B.F. Skinner's operant psychology applied a selectionist model to learning theory and in his 1981 paper "Selection by Consequences" he outlined how selectionism can be applied at the biological level (Darwinian biology), the level of individual behavior (radical behaviorism), and at the social-cultural level. The biologist Richard Dawkins in his *The Selfish Gene* did much to popularlize selectionist approaches to the ananlysis of social and cultural development with his proposal for a science of memetics.
>
> Just to take one example of how he attempts to provide a non
> teleological
> basis for a 'directional' theory of history:
>
> "Another general feature of sociocultural evolution is the expanding
> scale
> and diversity of human interaction. Over time larger and more
> complexly
> integrated societies develop. These are able to affect the ecosystem
> more
> dramatically, influence much larger surrounding areas economically
> and
> culturally, and impose their will on smaller, less tightly
> integrated
> societies. The increasing capacity of technologically advanced
> societies to
> shape the development of neighboring, smaller scale ones, and often
> to
> absorb them completely, helps to impose a linear direction on
> sociocultural
> devleopment. Because of the increasing rates of technological and
> social
> change associated with more complex societes, there apears to be
> less oppty
> for significantly different types to exist alongside each other for
> long
> periods when a complex society is involved than when all societies
> are
> small scale." p. 208
Robert Wright has published a book *Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny* which apparently advances a similar theory. (See the review in this Sunday's NY Times Book Review).
Jim Farmelant
>
> yrs, rakesh
>
>
>
>
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