BTW I’m surprised you didn’t mention the feudal nature of Chicago politics. It is a prime example.

What I find interesting is that Republicans do not tend to produce feudal cultures as often as Democrats.

And you might want to do something on how mechanized warfare produces a military meritocracy – you did allude to it. It takes a lot of aircraft mechanics to keep the “knights of the sky” in the air.

I do concede that my argument rest ultimately on the materialistic assumption.

More narrowly, we can say with scientific certainty that any behavior that persist for long periods of time will drive the evolution of genes to support it. The hypothesis is falsifiable because it predicts the existence of genes that we don’t currently know about.

So, once you make the materialistic assumption that all phenomena can ultimately be measured and quantified, then the hypothesis stands on fairly solid ground. It certainly stands on at least a firm setting as any other political hypothesis.

I appreciate your analysis, but it is not just that you have no proof for it, it’s that it’s unprovable. It is a story, rooted in evolutionary biology, that provides an explanation for the eternal return of socialism. If one starts with the assumptions of evolutionary biology, one might find it helpful, even compelling. If, however, one starts with different assumptions, one will find it neither. Another story, rooted in different assumptions, also explains socialism’s perennial appeal. It can be found in Genesis 3. Please understand. I don’t mean to insult you nor am I advocating Biblical literalism. I am simply pointing out the story one tells about the ultimate origin of anything human depends upon the covenant one is bound by. It depends upon the covenant to which one has CHOSEN to bind oneself.

I don’t disagree that cultures evolve many different modes of fair sharing. Instead, I argue that our genetic default is the sharing mode of the hunter-gatherer. That is why that idea of equal shares, immediately consumed, reoccurs time and time again in history even when the local culture says otherwise.

People adopt different sharing modes when conditions warrant them but they do so against the force of the genetically programmed mode. Without constant pressure selecting for the non-genetic mode, we will revert to the genetic mode.

I think it is the same reason why meritocracies are so rare and unstable in history. People are genetically programmed to cooperate and advance the interest of their blood kin. Empires arise when a polity abandons the family first model, develops an egalitarian and meritocratic structure. However, the family first tendencies eventually undermine meritocracy and the empire collapses.

I argue that the hunter-gatherer mode is hardware while all other modes are software. We always gravitate to the hunter-gatherer mode. That is socialism is such an easy sell and always has been over the millennia.

If the gene makes it more likely that a person will engage in a beneficial behavior then that generates selection pressure. Indeed, modern thinking on behavioral genetics holds that if you froze culture long enough (periods>100,000 years) almost any behavior could become largely genetically primed.

I think “primed” is the key word here. People can and do override genetic based behaviors. For example, we’re all programmed to seek sex yet culture and reason allow us to control the urges. It is only when we’re unaware of the actions of our genes that they become dangerous. I believe we do have a genetic sense of fair distribution of resources that we inherited from our hunter-gather ancestors and that our unawareness of it leads us to assume that some forms of organization are superior to others even when evidence to the contrary exist.

Cultural transmission models work just as well to explain the prevalence of those values, and require fewer assumptions;

I think a genetic explanation is required because of the universal nature of the behaviors I describe. If culture played the primary role, we would expect to see a great deal of diversity across thousands of documented human cultures but we don’t. All cultures seem to share the same basic concept of “fairness” especially when it come to dividing resources among individuals of equal status.

Genetic explanations of behavior might seem far fetched to some but if a behavior provides reproductive success over long periods of time, genes that enable that behavior will evolve and spread through the population. Even throughly modern humans, who evolved only 50,000 years ago ( out of four million) spent 40,000-44,000 years a hunter-gatherers. That is enough time for evolution change. People repeating the same cultural pattern over tens of thousands of years would inevitably end up genes priming people for that culture.

I agree with your ideas about the role of militarism and socialism. War brings about the highest degree of human cooperation and all socialism is inspired by the degree of cooperation and self-sacrifice that prevails during a military crisis. However, just because culture continues to reinforce the original hunter-gather patterns does not mean that no genetic predisposition exist.

My observation of shop, office, and academic politics is that it is mostly family and/or tribal based.

Yes, it is only in the last century that the Western world has moved beyond an explicit system of organization around extended family units. Most of the rest of the world still functions this way (which is why they’re still poor).

Meritocracy is an ideal we consciously struggle towards, not something that comes naturally to our species. It is imposed upon us by need, usually by a crisis of competition such as occurs in free-market competition or in a military invasion. Societies allow for merit promotion because they have to in order to survive. Once the crisis disappears or they begin to take the benefits of meritocracy for granted, we slip back into the genetic patterns and suffer the consequences their of.

Gilliland’s “Rosinante” trilogy is an interesting revolution story, like Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. No, not quite as good, but still very interesting and well done. And it has a lot of comments to make about socialism/communism

Why Isn’t Socialism Dead? This piece is over two years old but is still spot-on as to your observation.

I just finished a fascinating book called “Before the Dawn” which uses genetic and linguistic research to track the development of humans from near primate ancestors through the key period of modern human development from about 50,000 years ago to the present age. While I have no idea if that book influenced your thoughts in this post, much of what the author posits is congruent with your sketch here, although his political orientation would seem to be removed from yours.

I generally think that the truly ancient bases for our emotions are a much stronger influence on our behavior and decision making than is usually considered. Aggression, status seeking, our sex drive, and many other fundamental urges are rooted in the primitive reptilian brain underlying the more recent primate and human brain segments. I often wonder if what we term “genetic” is actually the release of rewarding chemicals by the older levels of our brain to reinforce behaviors more suitable to an ancient ancestor than to a modern human.

I have long thought that the default social structure most natural to humans is some form of a “feudal” structure based on a strong central figure and the radiating webs of loyalty and obligation that such a format entails. This formulation is also congruent with some of the points you make here, and fits both the political and religious structures found in most societies, from primitive clan based social orders right up to modern political parties and business corporations.

Finally, egalitarianism is a deadly trap when it is enforced by fiat instead of the result of natural social forces. The book cited earlier makes much of the generally egalitarian nature of hunter/gatherer societies, and the enormous changes in that conception of human society demanded by the development of agriculture, property, and surpluses which could be stored, stolen, and traded for other goods and services.

As I have said previously, socialism derives a great deal of its power and attraction from its religious elements, i.e., its demand for faith and committment to bring about a future paradise of equality and freedom from want. The emotional response to this potentiality is deep and reptilian indeed.

Enough.

An interesting story with not one shred of proof to confirm that it is true.

It’s a blog post, not a book. What kind of “proof” would you like? What assertions in the parent do you find dubious?

Have you read the Leviathan, (or did you just google it)

I read it 20 years ago in college. Why? I don’t see the revelence of Hobbs, who wrote 200 years previous to discovery of evolution and natural selection, to this argument.

Have you read the Leviathan, (or did you just google it)?

Have you ever read Thomas Hobbs?

This is not a Hobbian argument. “Hunter-gatherer” does not mean “savage” as Hobbs conceived it. Neither does the Leviathan play a role since such organization has only existed in the last 0.025% of hominid history.

Our genetic senses of “fair” are highly adapted to life of a hunter-gatherer. In such an environment, they do not result in the struggle-of-all-against-all but rather in a high degree of cooperation and mutual support. The problem we face currently is that we no longer live in that environment.