>>> farmelantj at juno.com 03/23/01 11:23AM >>
-clip-
For Carling, class struggle plays an essential role in social evolution because it is class struggle that acts as a generator for new variations in the relations of production. These new variations in turn are subjected to differential selection upon the basis of their relative adaptiveness in terms of fostering the forces of production. Carling, thus attempts to create a version of historical materialism that is directly analogous to Darwinian biology. Class struggles in Carling's theory play role analogous to that of mutations in Darwinian biology - that is the generator of new variations that are subjected to differential selection.
(((((((
CB: I could also see technological discoveries , inventions in the forces of production corresponding to random mutations in Darwinian biology, because the unpredictability of the order or sequence of technological discovery is inherent to the process of science, is part of the definition of "discovery".