>Indeed, as Louis Proyect once pointed out,
>(http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/1999m05.e/msg00078.htm),
>Karl Kautsky before becoming a Marxist, had
>been an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and Herbert
>Spencer, and indeed in an 1881article for Die Neue Zeit
>titled "The Indian Question," he argued according to
>Proyect that:
>
>"The reason the Europeans defeated the
>Indians, he explains, is that they had not gone far enough in the
>development of technology. In other words, they lacked Darwinian
>fitness,
>or quite possibly they lost the "competition and . . . struggle for
>existence," in Harvey's words."
This is part of a characteristically tendentious, devious even, critique of David Harvey. So while it's possible he's characterizing Kautsky's position correctly, given the abuse of Harvey, it'd be nice if someone else could confirm the quotation.
Doug