Kropotkin Was No Crackpot
Feb 11 2007 03:13
admin: link changed for an internal one. competition made me do it.
There was a link to this article in another thread, and while reading it I came across this quote by Kropotkin:
Quote:
If we ... ask Nature: “who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?” we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development of intelligence and bodily organization.
Assuming that by animals he is still including humans, which may be a false presumption, then I have the inclination to disagree with him for historical reasons. If the fittest are those which have the highest chance of survival, which historically were the Europeans (I will explain), then there must be some sort of reason for this. Now, we all know that humans in Africa, North America, Europe, Asia, etc... are the same species with more genetic diversity within one population than between two separate populations. Some historians, however, attribute the success of Europe over the rest of the world to their constant internal struggle, which forced them to create more efficient weapons. These weapons are not biological, and may be the reason this argument is incorrect, but did result from competition. These weapons gave the Europeans the best chance of survival if put into an environment in which Europeans and... let's say... Africans were forced to compete for survival.
So, I guess I must circle back around and argue against myself. It is quite possible that this idea, that an increase in fitness gives an individual a better chance of survival, may only be applicable within a specific environment. For, what need would a species of owl in Alaska need to outcompete an owl in Central America? This may be why these biological fitness descriptions cannot be applied to humans, for better or worse, because we have abilities that other species do not, specifically the means of production (As a species).
Furthermore, in reference to my initial argument about Europeans, it must be true that if there was continual competition within that specific environment, humans in that environment would have less chance to survive due to perhaps a smaller population which could possibly be wiped out by a natural disaster. This, however, did not come to be and technological advances in transportation eventually led to colonization.
Also, I might add that I am in no way saying that humans in Africa did not compete, because that would simply be false. I am saying, however, than according to historical record it seemed to have had a much higher frequency in Europe.
On a side note:
Quote:
Two aspects of animal life impressed me most during the journeys which I made in my youth in Eastern Siberia and Northern Manchuria. One of them was the extreme severity of the struggle for existence which most species of animals have to carry on against an inclement Nature; the enormous destruction of life which periodically results from natural agencies; and the consequent paucity of life over the vast territory which fell under my observation. And the other was, that even in those few spots where animal life teemed in abundance, I failed to find – although I was eagerly looking for it – that bitter struggle for the means of existence among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin himself) as the dominant characteristic of struggle for life, and the main factor of evolution.
It is interesting to note that he said this while he was an officer in the Russian military, before he was a radical. I'm sure most in the world of Biology who know his politics might be inclined to think otherwise.
Feb 11 2007 16:46
#2
makaira wrote:
Some historians, however, attribute the success of Europe over the rest of the world to their constant internal struggle, which forced them to create more efficient weapons.
to second Saii, the invention of better technology already assumes an advanced degree of social co-operation, not the individual competing actions of atomised individuals. futhermore thats far from the accepted historical view, or at least only a partial one - jared diamond's emphasis on available bio-geographic resources is another angle (with limitations of its own).
Kropotkin was reacting more to T H Huxley ('Darwin's Bulldog') than Darwin himself, and didn't dispute that interpersonal and inter-group competition exists and plays a role in evolution (hence Mutual Aid: A [not the] factor of evolution). Huxley was the main social darwinist - a bourgeois ideologist who sought to extrapolate Darwin's theories to society and tie it in the the manchester school free marketeers, to naturalise atomised bourgeois society - when in fact even in bourgeois society human beings are always-already social beings.
Kropotkin's thrust is that co-operation is at least as important as competition in evolution, or if you like that sociality is evolutionary fitness.
Feb 11 2007 22:26
#3
For a good read on the question as to why people from Europe (and species from the middle east) came to dominate the world, have a look at "Guns Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.
He's an evolutionary biologist with experience in Papua New Guniea. He makes the point that the average PNG native was likely to be more intelligent than the average westerner. He goes on to explain why - it's a fascinating book,
regards,
Martin
Feb 11 2007 22:30
#4
martinh wrote:
For a good read on the question as to why people from Europe (and species from the middle east) came to dominate the world, have a look at "Guns Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.
He's an evolutionary biologist with experience in Papua New Guniea. He makes the point that the average PNG native was likely to be more intelligent than the average westerner. He goes on to explain why - it's a fascinating book,regards,
Martin
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll look into it. I'd be skeptical to think that any particular group of individuals within this species, at least based on geographic orientation, is more intelligent than any other, though.
Feb 11 2007 22:45
#5
Diamond's argument is that New Guineans and westerners are selected by their conditions. Someone who does well in their environment will produce more children etc. In New Guinea the main causes of death are murder or accident. In the west historically it has been disease. Therefore someone is evolutionarily "fitter" if they are more alert to rival tribes and falling trees in New Guinea; and they are selected if their biochemical immunity can withstand certain diseases in the west. While it is not likley to be a big difference, there is the possibility that New Guinean might be more intelligent because those who were less intelligent were killed before they could breed. Intelligence had no factor in the survival of those facing disease epidemics,
regards,
Martin
Feb 12 2007 06:52
#6
i think diamond is speculating on intelligence differentials between png and the west, but he also cites the ability of png-eans to know and name all the local flora/fauna (hundreds of species) which he struggles with as a biologist who speaks 13 languages.
it's a good book, doesn't really get into issues of social organisation, there's a marxist critique of it knocking around somewhere. and one of the biologist posters here, jason i think, is very critical of his thesis too. but it's a good book, worth the read (the subtitle is 'a brief history of everyone for the last 13,000 years' - it does exactly what it says on the tin)
Feb 12 2007 11:37
#7
remember that Kropotkin was writing in response to the mainstream "survival of the fittest" position. he made a point of noting in "Mutual Aid" that he did not deny the fact of individual competition but was simply presenting evidence that this was not the whole picture.
His account, as such, was an attempt to balance the debate. It should not be taken to mean that Kropotkin ignored the role of competition within species. he simply showed that often the best way for individuals to survive was to co-operate.
Feb 12 2007 11:55
#8
Anarcho wrote:
remember that Kropotkin was writing in response to the mainstream "survival of the fittest" position
as an aside, that phrase was actually coined by Huxley (for his own ideological reasons), although Darwin incorporated it into later editions of The Origin... he preferred the term 'natural selection' which is less ideologically charged - in fact The Origin... explicitly eschewed discussing 'higher organisms' - and in the book that does, The Descent of Man Darwin waxes lyrical about "a deeply rooted social instinct" which has presumably been selected for. much of what is known as Darwinism is basically Huxley, just as much of what is known as Marxism is basically Lenin.
Feb 12 2007 12:40
#9
Na, "survival of the fittest" was Herbert Spencer (social Darwinist), but for the same sort of ideological reasons you meant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_Fittest
Feb 12 2007 12:45
#10
Well, you can prove anything with facts. but the thrust of it still stands.
Feb 12 2007 12:51
#11
don't let facts cloud your judgement 
Feb 12 2007 13:03
#12
WE ARE WINNING!
Feb 12 2007 14:52
#13
makaira wrote:
If the fittest are those which have the highest chance of survival, which historically were the Europeans (I will explain), then there must be some sort of reason for this. Now, we all know that humans in Africa, North America, Europe, Asia, etc... are the same species with more genetic diversity within one population than between two separate populations.
Jared Diamond discusses this very question at length in his Guns, Germs and Steel. The short answer is related to availablity of a large number of natural grains (as compared to the few candidates in the Americas, or Australia); an east-west geographical axis that allowed such grains to easily move from the near east to Greece, to all across western europe; a large number of animals suitable for domestication (unlike Africa, the Americas or Australia. They still can't domesticate the Zebra, and nobody rides buffalo). Earlier and varied agriculture, more diverse animal domestication, and with all that large populations... easier travel routes along the mediterreanan, etc...
That said, Europe was hard pressed for a very long time by North Africa, the Near East and the Far East. Arguably, their real edge only came from China closing it's borders, the European expansion to the Americas and the huge amount of wealth they got through that conquest (greatly aided by their diseases from thousands years of animal husbandry and large populations).
Also, if we are counting numbers as a matter of survial, aren't there like a billion+ people in the People's Republic of China (plus other linguistic/ethnic chinese all over the world) and a billion people in India? There are another 1.4 billion adherents of Islam?
Europe's technological edge has only been for about four hundred years, and the biggest aid was disease. You'll notice that the Europeans efforts at settlement and colonialism in Africa and Asia were a lot more successfully contested than they were in the Americas.
Regardless, your argument about warfare isn't so great. Any warfare is not a struggle of individuals competing. It's large collectives cooperating to murder the other collective. Supply chains, mass and maneuver, coordination. It's a very cooperative/collective endeavour, this business of ruthlessly slaughtering each other and is only real possible to do so efficiently because of the benefits of science... a long term collective project.
If the CNT-FAI had somehow defeated Franco, would people have that as an example that humanity is inherently competitive? Or would it have instead been a testament to the cooperation among spanish anarchists?
Human beings are both cooperative and competitive. We emphasize mutually-destructive competition at our own peril.
Feb 12 2007 15:05
#14
I feel I have failed myself to have completely overlooked China and their radical isolationism post-Zeng He. I had always sincerely held that if China would not have isolated themselves in fear of Mongols (Which was valid, don't get me wrong), it is likely that they would have become the largest colonizing power.
Edit: Thank you for the history supplement. I will definitely look into that book and alternate hypothesis regarding Europe's rise to power.
Feb 12 2007 15:08
#15
china had the largest naval fleet in the world at one point but abolished it on a whim of the emperor, a point which makes diamond speculate in your direction actually, saying the fractured political structures in europe meant such whimsical rejections of technology would mean subjection to a less whimsical neighbour, whereas unified centralised china could get away with it (in the short term at least).
Feb 12 2007 15:20
#16
I know some Leninists that read the issue of the banning of the Chinese merchant flleet as the feudal powers smothering the nascent bourgeois in the cradle any thoughts on that angle?
Feb 12 2007 15:22
#17
all i know of it is what Diamond wrote, and he's silent on class issues. sounds plausible though, merchants would have been threatening the traditional feudal power structures i guess
Feb 12 2007 16:10
#19
Joseph K. wrote:
Kropotkin was no crackpot is no in thew libcom library
Great. Thanks Joseph K.
Feb 12 2007 16:38
#20
I sent John a PM to put "Kropotkin was no crackpot" up last year and got no reply, cheers JoeK 
Feb 12 2007 16:44
#21
comrade John. will be reported for disciplinary procedings. thank you for your assistence citizen xconorx,
libstasi
Feb 12 2007 16:57
#22
Good, it was unacceptable. No doubt he'll deny it. Denial is the first sign of guilt.
Feb 12 2007 17:49
#23
Joseph K. wrote:
it's a good book, doesn't really get into issues of social organisation, there's a marxist critique of it knocking around somewhere.all i know of it is what Diamond wrote, and he's silent on class issues. sounds plausible though, merchants would have been threatening the traditional feudal power structures i guess
Joseph K., here is the Marxist critique Trots calling Diamond on Caste
One thing, though, that Diamond shares with many Marxists in addition to being a materialist, is something of a unilinear cultural evolution. Diamond hedges on this, and will express his respect for various hunting and gathering societies. He even goes so far to have called agriculture, the worst mistake in human history; echoing the sentiments of Zerzan and other primitivists. This is also why I feel that many primitivists are more vulgar historical materialists that have inverted progress, without them really acknowleding their debt to what should be a bankrupt eurocentric position.
This position goes back to the foundation of anthropology and Marxism, namely... Lewis Henry Morgan's theory on history and development. This is those oh so neat categorizations of society as savage, barbarian, and civilized. A unilinear cultural evolution is clear in Engel's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and is based off of Marx's ethnological notebooks (see if you can find Lawrence Krader's publication of them). Such categories that Kropotkin also uses in his Mutual Aid.
Diamond sees social structure, a kleptocracy, as ultimately a factor intrinsic to growing, settled, agricultural populations. He sees it as inevitable. The best the oppressed can do, in Diamond's opinion, is to oust one group of kleptocrats for hopefully a more benevolent group of kleptocrats; and the big questions of history were determined largely by environmental, geographic and techological factors, not even individual human agency. For Diamond, if you develop a settled, agricultural society... you are inevitably headed towards an exploitive state.
Obviously, this is a problematic view for anarchists.
I struggled with this concept for awhile, but found that the unilinear cultural evolution view is flawed (and to a certain extent so is the question that started this thread about war as competition between cultures determing the survival of the fittest).
I actually studied Marx's ethnographic notebooks, and Engels. I read Morgan. I focused in on the Iroquois, the primary example Marx, Engels and Morgan use for a stateless communist society of "barbarians" (though Morgan over emphasizes "the hunt" and thus makes "savages" out of the Iroquois at the point in their history of their lowest population in the 1800s).
I try and tackle this through a case study. In the next issue of Northeastern Anarchist, I have an article "Where License Reigns With All Impunity" An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity". It should be published in print and on the net by next week. Here is the introduction:
Quote:
Quote:
"Their Policy in this is very wise, and has nothing Barbarous in it. For, since their preservation depends upon their union, and since it is hardly possible that among peoples where license reigns with all impunity -- and, above all, among young people -- there should not happen some event capable of causing a rupture, and disuniting their minds, -- for these reasons, they hold every year a general assembly in Onnontaé. There all the Deputies from the different Nations are present, to make their complaints and receive the necessary satisfaction in mutual gifts, -- by means of which they maintain a good understanding with one another."
François le Mercier, 1668 (1)Some historical materialists claim a densely settled, agricultural population will inevitably develop into a hierarchically stratified society, with a centralized state and an exploitative economic redistribution system, in order avoid warfare while resolving blood feuds among its members.(2) While this is a common occurence, it is not the only way these issues have been resolved. Located along the southern banks of Kaniatarí:io (Lake Ontario), the traditional society of the Rotinonshón:ni (Iroquois),(3) "The People of the Longhouse," was a densely settled, matrilineal, communal, and extensively horticultural society. The Rotinonshón:ni formed a confederacy initially of five nations: Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk), Oneniote'á:ka (Onedia), Ononta'kehá:ka (Onondaga), Kaion'kehá:ka (Cayuga) and Shotinontowane'á:ka (Seneca). Generations before historical contact with Europeans,(4) these nations united through the Kaianere'kó:wa (“the Great Good Way”) into the same polity(5) and ended blood feuding without economic exploitation, stratification, or the formation of a centralized state.
Jared Diamond hypothesizes that when stateless egalitarian hunter-gather societies develop agriculture and experience population growth, blood feuds and new resource management problems challenge their ability to maintain horizontal political relationships and economic communalism. (6) According to Diamond, the material transition itself leads inevitably to the State, which he refers to as "the kleptocracy," and the most the oppressed can hope for by revolting is for a change in the rate of exploitation and oppression by installing a new group of kleptocrats. In his view, "the kleptocracy" is ultimately a function of material culture.(7)
Some Marxists agree with Diamond's perspective. They argue that in the transitions from hunter-gather communism to feudalism, and from there to capitalism, society develops the industrial production of the social wealth necessary for communism to become an option again. There is at least one strong counter example to this vulgar historical determinism and unilinear cultural evolution: the formation and continued survival of the Rotinonshón:ni in the northeast of North America.
While critical of Marxism, Murray Bookchin acknowledges the cooperative and peaceful internal nature of hunter-gather societies but also brings up the problems of external warfare.
Quote:
"To members of their own bands, tribes, or clans, prehistoric and later foraging peoples were normally cooperative and peaceful; but toward members of other bands, tribes, or clans, they were often warlike, even sometimes genocidal in their efforts to dispossess them and appropriate their land.... As to modern foragers, the conflicts between Native American tribes are too numerous to cite at any great length... the tribes that were to finally make up the Iroquois Confederacy (the Confederacy itself was a matter of survival if they were not to all but exterminate one another), and the unrelenting conflict between Mohawks and Hurons, which led to the near extermination and flight of remnant Huron communities." (8)The conflicts Bookchin mentions occurred around Kaniatarí:io and Lake Erie in the 17th century and are often referred to as the "Beaver Wars," due to the connection with the fur trade between indigenous and European people. Bookchin’s description the conflict of Kanien'kehá:ka and the Wendat (Huron) as "extermination" or "genocidal" is inaccurate. Rather than a matter of ethnic cleansing or economic competition, that conflict is better understood as a civil war of political unification among Iroquois speakers. It is ironic that in Bookchin’s tirade against modern anti-civilizationist mystification of the primitive, he acknowledges the formation as of Rotinonshón:ni polity that ended the warfare among the Five Nations, but fails to reflect upon this momentous accomplishment or see how much their achievement has parallels with his own political ideas.
---
1. Thwaites, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610-1791, Vol. 51
2. Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, 268-269
3. For this article, "Iroquois" will be used to refer to those who speak a northern Iroquois language, while "Rotinonshón:ni" (Haudenosaunee) will be used for the specific polity, also known as the People of the Longhouse and the League (Confederacy) of Five (Six) Nations. Terms used throughout the article are mostly in standard Kanien'kehá:ka
4. Bonaparte, Creation and Confederation, 47
5. Also referred to as Gayanashagowa, "The Great Law," "The Great Law of Peace", "The Good Tidings of Peace and Power (and Righteousness)," "The Great Binding Law," "The Constitution of the Five (Six) Nations"
6. Diamond, 286-287
7. Ibid, 276
8. Bookchin, Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism
I find it quite ironic that it was Morgan's theory of unilinear cultural evolution that influenced Marx and Engels, that then influenced a vulgar historical materialist position among socialists--used examples specifically of the Iroquois. Had Morgan only understood the Iroquois better... we could have avoided a whole lot of trouble.
Feb 12 2007 18:03
#24
yeah the linearity of both marx and diamond's concept of history is rather staid, but theorists of non-linear history such as manuel de landa mostly spout declassé pish. someone needs to invent nonlinear dialectics, i would but i'm too busy
Feb 12 2007 20:44
#25
Flint wrote:
I find it quite ironic that it was Morgan's theory of unilinear cultural evolution that influenced Marx and Engels, that then influenced a vulgar historical materialist position among socialists--used examples specifically of the Iroquois. Had Morgan only understood the Iroquois better... we could have avoided a whole lot of trouble.
There was a book I read a few weeks ago by a political anthropologist from the states that went fairly in-depth into the history and evolution (no pun intended) of the unilinial evolution theory of societies, basically breaking it down and pointing out its inumerable flaws - very interesting theory.
I would have to fully agree with you that there are many flaws in the statement that started this thread, the main problem that brought up the fairly minor theory of European evolution was the differentiation between competition of individuals and cooperation. Here's my basic problem:
One individual against another is considered competition between individuals, and as both Kropotkin and Darwin state this is not the only type of struggle.
The other type, a group of individuals against its environment, is considered cooperation. This is where my problem arises, in the definition of environment. According to those who have posted in this thread and even myself, the environment is made up of not only plants, other species of animal, and naturally occurring events, but also other groups of your own species (Which can be witnessed with the evolution of Europe [mind you I'm using the word 'evolution' not in the sense that the society is becoming better, merely that it is changing over time]).
So, what we have here is a flawed definition it seems. When an individual is struggling against another individual, it is considered competition. When a group of individuals is competing against their environment (Including other groups of individuals) it is considered cooperation, even though competition is taking place. So, cooperation in and of itself is competition, merely competition involving at least one group rather than competition in which only individuals are considered.
Feb 12 2007 20:54
#26
well in the second case, both co-operation and competition are taking place, it's not an either/or. obviously kropotkin as an anarchist communist (and support for wwI aside) would seek an ending of intraspecial competition through a furthering of co-operation and mutual aid and the destruction of the social system premised on forced competition and war.
Feb 12 2007 21:02
#27
Joseph K. wrote:
well in the second case, both co-operation and competition are taking place, it's not an either/or. obviously kropotkin as an anarchist communist (and support for wwI aside) would seek an ending of intraspecial competition through a furthering of co-operation and mutual aid and the destruction of the social system premised on forced competition and war.
I think it is to simple to merely say that "both co-operation and competition are taking place." I think it may be more accurate, at least in the European example, to say that co-operation is taking place for the sake of competition. That being said this competition can take place as both offensive and defensive, and Kropotkin (along with most anarchists) emphasizes the defensive aspect as most important.
Feb 12 2007 21:13
#28
but this is where a class analysis comes in, why is there a state? why are states driven to war? etc - communists say there is intraspecific competition in society - class war. the task end the war by ending it's precondition, the (violent) division of humanity into classes.
Feb 12 2007 21:46
#29
Joseph K. wrote:
but this is where a class analysis comes in, why is there a state? why are states driven to war? etc - communists say there is intraspecific competition in society - class war. the task end the war by ending it's precondition, the (violent) division of humanity into classes.
It would seem that the state was created in general, because a cooperating group competed and won. Although this may happen in other species, because of the state (no pun intended) of our cognition those that won were able to keep their status, whether it be through the suggested supernatural, physical force, etc... States are driven into war for the same reasons.
I would have to say that the evolution of our mind is slowly leading us toward becoming more rational animals, weeding out abstractions over time. This can, and hopefully will, end with us overcoming "genetic" preconditions (Such as many humans have done in deciding not to have children) which is solely dependent on the rate at which we accept rationality (i.e. weed out the supernatural).
The disparity in apparent rationality between individuals and cultures, connecting back to Darwin and Kropotkin, seems to be reliant almost entirely on a combination of environmental pressures and genetic pressures, the combination of which results in the concept of social pressure, which was, by the nature of Earth, unevenly dispersed.
I must add that it seems environmental pressure was and is a much larger factor in the shaping of the human mind than genetics, though both certainly contribute.
Feb 12 2007 22:05
#30
i don't think you can juxtapose rationality to abstraction - that suggests abstraction = irrational, but isn't much of mathematics abstract? isn't abstract thought itself a 'higher' form of thought than merely contingent reaction?
also i've no idea if there's a general trend towards greater rationality - people have always seemed to believe what makes most sense given the general knowledge of the time - the Chimú in pre-inca peru overthrough their moon-god theocratic rulers when catastrophic floods falsified their belief system. they replaced them with a military state of sun-worshippers, but still ... (bear in minf the importance of the moon and sun to fishing (tides) and agriculture respectively).
makaira wrote:
I must add that it seems environmental pressure was and is a much larger factor in the shaping of the human mind than genetics, though both certainly contribute.
there's a good book by Steven Rose on this - the 21st century brain. he rightly comments the nature vs nurture debate is a false dichotomy, saying we are necessarily 100% a product of both, and that in terms of neural development what's operative is a dialectic (understood simply as antagonism) between specificity (fixed form) and plasticity (adaptiveness).
Um, yeah but Kropotkin was talking about co-operation between large numbers of people, not individuals. Europeans weren't fighting each other as individuals any more or less than Africans, what they were doing was banding together in large organised groups to fight other 'nations'.
A relatively common feature of European history has been big blocs forming (Greece, Rome, Catholicism, the imperial powers) and then having spare capacity which is used to invent etc. Where this was replicated in Northern Africa (eg. the Nubians), similar advances both peaceful and warlike occurred.