Darwinian Anarchism

Any contemporary revolutionary political movement that wishes to be taken seriously in popular discourse, and more importantly, to be successful in achieving its political and social goals, must root its theories in a scientifically accurate understanding of human nature.  Traditional Anarchism, rooted in a utopian theory of human nature, no longer passes this test.  In the time of Bakunin, Proudhon, Kropotkin, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, and the other founders of modern Anarchist theory, there was no scientific reason to doubt the accuracy of the utopian theory of human nature: the assumption that all human beings are born good but are corrupted by society.  Given the advancements in our understanding of human nature, however, the utopian theory of human nature is no longer a tenable position.  If the Anarchist movement is to remain relevant and intellectually honest, it must not cling to antiquated and unsound theories of human nature; rather, it must embrace the scientific theory of human nature, and show that even though human beings are not naturally good, it is still possible to create an egalitarian and libertarian society.  In my opinion, the Anarchist movement will become much stronger when it fully embraces a scientific theory of human nature: doing so will rob conservatives of their only convincing argument against Anarchism—that it is unrealistic and utopian—and will make Anarchism more appealing to potential supporters who currently doubt its feasibility.

So, what exactly is the scientific theory of human nature?  While our understanding of human nature is still limited, we know a great deal about the essential features of human nature, due to breakthroughs in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and anthropology.  Some of these findings will be welcomed by optimists.  For one thing, it is indisputable that the human race has evolved an innate moral sense.  According to Steven Pinker, “Children as young as a year and half spontaneously give toys, proffer help, and try to comfort adults or other children who are visibly distressed. People in all cultures distinguish right from wrong, have a sense of fairness, help one another, impose rights and obligations, believe that wrongs should be redressed, and proscribe rape, murder, and some kinds of violence...  The alternative ... to the religious theory of the source of values is that evolution endowed us with a moral sense.”[1]  It is equally indisputable that the urge to create and enjoy art is universal,[2] and that human beings are generally rational, at least about matters of self interest.[3] 

These facts really should come as no surprise.  There are obvious evolutionary reasons for the existence of morality, art, and logic in the human species.  In our evolutionary past, genes that caused individuals to think rationally in the pursuit of their self-interests survived into future generations because they helped their carriers survive and procreate, while genes for irrationality did not survive because they prevented their carriers from prospering and procreating.  Genes that caused individuals to cooperate with fellow human beings, treat others decently, and care about friends and family members became prominent because people who cooperated, shared ideas, and worked together to acquire food and defend against mutual enemies had a better chance of surviving than individuals who lived as solitary hermits. Genes that caused individuals to create beautiful art would flourish for the same reason that genes for beautiful tails flourish in peacocks: they help their carriers attract mates.  Anarchists should certainly welcome these findings, and incorporate them into our social theory.

Unfortunately, many of the findings are devastating to the utopian theory of human nature.  The most damaging of these finds that certain individuals have an innate genetic tendency to engage in violent, antisocial, or psychopathic behavior, including both rape and murder.  According to Pinker: “Convicted murders and other violent, antisocial people are likely to have a smaller and less active prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that governs decision making and inhibits impulse.”  This suggests that there is a direct correlation between the physiological functioning of the brain, and the manifestation of violent, anti-social, psychopathic behavior.  Pinker continues to suggest that there are two different types of psychopaths: “One kind consists of people who are genetically predisposed to psychopathy regardless of how they grow up.  The other kind is made up of people who are predisposed to psychopathy only in certain circumstances, namely when they perceive themselves to be competitively disadvantaged in society and find themselves at home in a group of other antisocial peers.”

Psychopathy of the former kind seems to have evolved in the human race for purely Darwinian reasons: individuals who were completely devoid of a moral conscious were able to thrive by taking advantage of society and violently dominating other people, and thus were able to perpetuate their genetic line. Genes for psychopathy have not come to dominate the human species, because, as we have seen, pro-social behavior is generally more successful.  However, genes for psychopathy have survived into the modern era, perhaps due to an evolutionary process known as frequency dependent selection.  Basically, this means that a small number of anti-social people can prosper in a society of pro-social people, because they can reap the benefits of belonging to a society, and exploit other individuals without having to sacrifice anything for the good of other people as ordinary participants in society must.  However, in a society with a larger number of psychopaths, psychopathy ceases to be an advantage and even become a disadvantage, while pro-social behavior becomes advantageous again.  This explains why the genes for psychopathy seem to survive generation after generation without ever becoming dominant in the entire species.

It seems that, while poor social environments are to blame for triggering psychopathy in some people who would otherwise be normal, the social environment cannot be blamed for causing all anti-social behavior: there are some people who will be psychopathic no matter what, even if they are born into peace and prosperity.  On the face of it, this seems to be something that Anarchists instinctively understand, even if some of us would rather not admit it: how else could we explain the actions of presidents, kings, CEO’s, and other tyrants who are born into privileged circumstances and still commit acts of unspeakable evil?  On the other hand, the fact strikes right at the core of the utopian theory of human nature which is so dear to many radicals.  It is just hard for us to believe that some people just cannot be good, no matter what, but it seems to be true, so we have to readjust our theory to deal with this fact.

So what are the real political implications of this fact?  The resulting argument that conservatives advance is that if some people are genetically predisposed to become psychopaths, we need government and police to protect us from them.  I think we can easily take the same fact and turn the resulting political argument on its head:

1. A tiny percentage of the world’s population is genetically predisposed to psychopathy.
2. A psychopath who controls a large, centralized, authoritarian political or economic institution is far more dangerous than one who does not.  Imagine how many tens of millions of lives would have been saved if psychopaths such as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot had been born into Anarchist societies, without large, centralized, authoritarian institutions for them to commandeer and use to execute millions.  At the most, an individual psychopath rarely is able to kill more than ten people before he is brought to justice.  A psychopath who has risen to a leadership position in an authoritarian institution, however, can cause millions of deaths.
3. In the interest of preventing large-scale violence and mass-murder, we must dismantle large, centralized, authoritarian political and economic institutions.  Merely democratizing these institutions is not enough to prevent them from coming under the control of a murderous psychopath; after all, Hitler himself was democratically elected.  The issue of psychopathy can be dealt with most intelligently, most effectively, and most safely at the organic, community level.  Anarchist communities could choose to banish, ostracize, quarantine, or in extreme cases even kill people with innate psychopathic tendencies who threatened the security of other people; any one of these methods would result in fewer deaths than an authoritarian system.

Transcending Human Nature

Psychopathy, while highly destructive, is a relatively uncommon genetic disorder.  There are many other more prevalent problems facing society which are caused by our universal human nature, by some innate tendency which has run amuck.  Anarchists who wish to establish a peaceful, libertarian, environmentally-friendly global society must address these issues.  Two examples stand out in particular as tremendous problems which obviously are rooted in dangerous manifestations of universal human nature: overpopulation, and violence.  Both of these problems are caused by manifestations of the two most basic human urges (the urge to engage in sex, and the urge to engage in aggression or violence, which probably has its roots in the urge to hunt), both are extremely dangerous in modern society even though they were relatively benign and even necessary in their original context, and both have the potential to destroy the human race by culminating in nuclear holocaust, or ecological destruction. 

These problems can be solved, however, through intelligent social planning.  We are lucky that there is a difference between the ultimate evolutionary goal that an innate human urge has evolved to meet, and the actual urge itself.  For example, natural selection has endowed humans with an urge to engage in sexual activity, but not necessarily an urge to procreate, even though the sexual urge originally evolved to encourage procreation.  Similarly, natural selection has endowed humans with an urge to engage in aggression, but not necessarily with an urge to kill, even though the aggressive urge originally evolved to encourage the killing of game.  Humans are smart enough to find ways of fulfilling our urges without having to deal with dangerous side-effects: for instance, we can use birth control, and experience the joys of sex without having to deal with its painful consequence—overpopulation—and we can experience the joy of aggression by playing football or watching a violent film without having to deal with its painful consequence—murder.[4]  The term used in psychology to describe the expression of a potentially destructive urge in an innocuous or even creative way is sublimation.  If we are to transcend the trap of human nature, we will have to establish cultural traditions and social institutions which promote sublimation of potentially destructive human urges, for instance, by removing taboos against sex for pleasure, and by promoting aggressive sports, arts, and video games, to provide outlets for potentially violent energy.

It is important that we recognize that the success of Anarchism depends on finding ways to neutralize and suppress unsavory aspects of human nature, specifically, those which tend to result in violence, oppression, exploitation, and environmental degradation.  This task necessarily involves organizing society to foster individual liberty and equality, and to suppress unsavory and dangerous aspects of human nature.  Certain factions in the Anarchist movement—specifically primitivism and insurrectionary anarchism,[5] which seem to be particularly beholden to a utopian theory of human nature—seem to think that all we need to do to establish an egalitarian and libertarian society is to destroy hierarchical institutions.  It is clear, when evaluating the issue in light of the new science of human nature, that an Anarchist revolution can only succeed if it simultaneously destroys hierarchical and authoritarian organizations and creates new, anti-authoritarian cultural and social organizations, which will curb the worst aspect of human nature and allow the best aspects to come to prominence. 

Darwinian Anarchism

In my view, there are many lines of argument that Darwinian Anarchists can take to show that it is possible to create an egalitarian and libertarian society, in spite of the fact that human beings are not born angels or blank slates.  I will only present two of the most obvious arguments here, but I hope that other Anarchist thinkers will articulate other arguments which show that Anarchism is still relevant and important in light of the new science of human nature. 

My first argument deals with rationality:

1. Human beings are inherently rational when it comes to pursuing their self-interests.  This is a supposition that is held to be true by experts on evolutionary biology and prominent capitalist thinkers as well.  Of course there are certainly exceptions to this rule—all individuals can engage in irrational behavior from time to time, and some people are particularly prone to doing so—but it is the rule, and not the exception, which is pertinent to political policy
2. It is in the rational interest of the vast majority of human beings to establish and perpetuate a society based on economic cooperation and individual freedom, and to unite in solidarity against tyrants.  It seems to me to be self-evident that it is in the interest of the vast majority of the world’s population to do away with an economic and political system which forces half the world’s population to survive on less than 2 dollars a day and leaves 8 million people to die every year because of poverty, so that a tiny majority can enjoy overwhelming luxury. 
3. It is possible to establish and sustain an Anarchist society, even if people are inherently selfish.  The only reason that many people have not made the rational decision to create a society based on economic cooperation and individual freedom, rather than exploitation and oppression, is massive ignorance and fear of a violent reaction from reactionary forces.   This ignorance can be remedied by education.  The fear of violence is a more complex matter, but history has shown us again and again that, in revolutionary situations, people are willing to sacrifice their own lives to change the world for the better.

Another argument follows from the finding that human beings have evolved an innate moral sense:

1. Most people are inherently moral and, as such, have innate aversions to violence, war, rape, and other anti-social behavior.  The major exception, of course, is the psychopath, who, as previously noted, is far more dangerous in an authoritarian society than in a libertarian society.  There are other exceptions (how numerous these exceptions are, it is difficult to say): people lack integrity but will act morally if it is socially necessary.
2. Inherently moral people will not support violent and exploitative institutions unless they are ignorant, or unable to fulfill their own basic needs in any other way.  For instance, most people in the United States have no choice but to support corporations, or else fail to meet subsistence and fail to gain social status and many are simply ignorant about the exploitation, oppression, and violence at the core of capitalist economics.  If they had a choice, and were educated, it is doubtful that they would continue to support amoral corporations.
3. If people could fulfill their fundamental needs without supporting violent or exploitative institutions, they would overwhelmingly choose to do so.  The task for Anarchists, then, is to educate people about the amoral nature of the existing state-capitalist system, and make it possible for people to fulfill their fundamental needs without supporting violent or exploitative institutions by establishing mutual aid economies and promoting a culture of social capital, in which prestige and status are granted to the most generous and not to the most ruthless.  In order to promote generocity, we need to create a society in which it is in the individual’s best interest (from an evolutionary perspective) to be generous.  In such a culture, even people lacking a moral sense would be forced to act altruistically, in order to avoid being ostracized and losing social status and potential mates.  How can such a society come into existence?  First of all, it is necessary to establish moral accountability.  In our culture, it is considered taboo to brag about one’s good deeds.  We must overturn this taboo in our society, because it exists only to protect selfishness, and to ensure that social status remains tied to personal wealth and not to personal generocity.  We need to insist on full disclosure on matters of personal generosity, to shame misers and misanthropes into acting morally.  A society with those social mechanisms would be able to virtually eliminate anti-social, violent, exploitative, oppressive behavior, by making such behavior evolutionarily irrational.

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The Darwinian Anarchist Project

I encourage other Anarchist thinkers to write more about the implications of the Darwinian understanding of human nature on Anarchist theory.  I would like to assemble a collection of writings on this matter, for publication on fuckauthority.org, and perhaps, at some later point, for publication in a book.  If you are interested in contributing to this project, please email me at dbaake@sbcglobal.net.