At 12:01 AM 4/30/97 -0700, m@2 wrote:

>the different ways in which these are deployed socially ... if we are to
>see all of society as driven by genetic competition, how do we explain
>things like suicide?  lower birth rates among the rich?  celibacy?
>homosexuality?  a social-darwinist approach simply can't account for these
>without sounding silly (not that I am accusing you of promoting social
>darwinism, although I am not certain from your post that you would not
>advocate it, given what you've said) ....

I do not propose that evolutionary theory (ET) can explain all behavior,
nor do I propose that ET should be used to rationalize and "justify"
behavior (social Darwinism).  To the contrary, ET highlights that innate
behavior that is dangerous to society and must be limited by authority.

Here is my short essay on the subject:

================================================================

 "... in the first place, I put forth a general inclination
  of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power
  after power, that ceaseth only in death." -- Thomas Hobbes
                           . . .

                      THE FATAL FREEDOM
                        by Jay Hanson                 01/03/97

   Exploit: To employ to the greatest possible advantage.
                           . . .
   There is now scientific consensus that humanity is
"unsustainable," and may have less than 35 years before
the "functional integrity" of its life-support system is
destroyed.(1)  Despite this staggering evidence of its
colossal stupidity, humanity remains firmly committed to a
paradoxical struggle against itself.  Moreover, caught by
an insatiable drive for power(2) -- like a school of sharks
caught in a feeding frenzy -- humanity resorts to self-
deception and is conspicuously unable to rationally question
its own premises.  In this essay, I endeavor to point out
the fatal flaw inherent in capitalism(3): the fatal freedom
to exploit the commons.

GENETIC ROOTS OF EXPLOITATION

   A few million years ago, our ancestor Homo Habilis developed
a hierarchical social life based on hunting and gathering.
Habilis males and females shared meat and produce, dividing
jobs by gender:  child care and gathering to females,
fighting and hunting to males.  Habilis originated the
hunter-gatherer lifestyle that was to last for millions
of years until the invention of settled agriculture.

   Hunter-gatherers exploited an area until it was exhausted
and then moved on to a new one.  For millions of years,
exploitation contributed to survival of the species and
evolution selected for the best exploiters.

   The transition to settled agriculture began around 12,000
years ago and was primarily subsistence in nature.  Farmers
generally grew only enough food to feed themselves and their
families.  Approximately 7000 years ago, the inventions of
the plow and irrigation allowed food supplies to increase
by dramatically increasing the power of farmers to exploit
nature.  Instead of just exhausting an area and moving on
like the hunter-gatherers did, now farmers could totally
devastate an area.  And then move.

    "Some 4,400 years ago, the city-states of ancient Sumer
  in modern-day Iraq faced an unsettling dilemma.  Farmland
  was gradually accumulating salt, the byproduct of
  evaporating irrigation water.  Almost imperceptibly,
  the salt began to poison the rich soil, and over time
  harvests tapered off.

    "Until 2400 BC, Sumerians had managed the problem
  of dwindling yields by cultivating new land, thereby
  ensuring the consistent food surpluses needed to support
  their armies and bureaucracies.  But now they had reached
  the limits of agricultural expansion.  And over the next
  three centuries, accumulating salts drove crop yields
  down more than 40 percent. The crippled production,
  combined with an ever-growing population, led to shrinking
  food reserves, which in turn reduced the ranks of soldiers
  and civil servants.  By 1800 BC, Sumerian agriculture had
  effectively collapsed, and this once glorious civilization
  faded into obscurity."(4)

   We knew that irrigation "inevitably leads to the
salinization of soils and waters"(5) that long ago?!  But
we have been doing it ever since?!  Have we been deceiving
ourselves for over 4000 years?

GENETIC ROOTS OF SELF-DECEPTION

   In the late 50s, the social scientist Erving Goffman made a
stir with a book called THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY
LIFE, that stressed how much time we all spend on stage,
playing to one audience or another.  Goffman marveled
that sometimes a person is "sincerely convinced that the
impression of reality which he stages is the real reality."

   What modern evolution theory brings to Goffman's
observation is an explanation of the practical function of
self-deception: we deceive ourselves in order to deceive
others better.  In his foreword to Richard Dawkins' THE
SELFISH GENE, Robert Trivers noted Dawkins' emphasis on the
role of deception in animal life and added, in a much-cited
passage, that if indeed "deceit is fundamental to animal
communication, then there must be strong selection to spot
deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of
self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious
so as not to betray -- by the subtle signs of self-knowledge
-- the deception being practiced."  Thus, "the conventional
view that natural selection favors nervous systems which
produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a
very naive view of mental evolution."(6)

   For millions of years, self-deception also contributed to
survival and evolution selected for the best self-deceivers!
Indeed, self-deception and exploitation certainly seem to be
what we do best.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS

   The inevitable outcome of self-deception and exploitation
is brilliantly illustrated in Garrett Hardin's classic, THE
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS (1968).  The "commons" refers to the
common resources that are owned by everyone.  The "tragedy"
occurs as the result of everyone having the fatal freedom to
exploit the commons.

   Hardin's essay goes something like this:  Visualize a
pasture as a system that is open to everyone.  The carrying
capacity of this pasture is 10 animals.  Ten herdsmen are
each grazing an animal to fatten up for market.  In other
words, all the grass that the pasture can produce is now
being consumed by the 10 animals.

   Harry (one of the herdsmen) will add one more animal to the
pasture if he can make a profit.  He subtracts the original
cost of the new animal from the expected sales price of the
fattened animal and then considers the cost of the food.
Adding one more animal will mean less food for each of the
present animals, but since Harry only has only 1/10 of the
herd, he has to pay only 1/10 of the cost.  Harry decides to
exploit the commons and the other herdsmen, so he adds an
animal and takes a profit.  Shrinking profit margins force
the other herdsmen either to go out of business or continue
the exploitation by adding more animals.  This process of
mutual exploitation continues until overgrazing and erosion
destroy the pasture system, and all the herdsmen are driven
out of business.

   Although Hardin describes exploitation in an unregulated
public pasture, the pasture also serves as a metaphor for
our entire society.  Our communities are the commons.  Our
schools are the commons.  Our roads, our air, our water;
we ourselves are the commons!

   There is no "technological" solution to this fatal flaw
in capitalism.  A "political" solution is theoretically
possible:  prohibit freedom in the commons.  But with
capitalism serving as our political system (one-dollar-one-
vote), there is no political solution either!(7)

  Most importantly, Hardin illustrates the critical flaw
of freedom in the commons: all participants must agree to
conserve the commons, but any one can force the destruction
of the commons.  Thus, as long as we are free to exploit the
commons, we are locked into a paradoxical struggle against
ourselves -- a terrible struggle that must end in universal
ruin.

HOBBES' PERMANENT WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL

   Three-hundred years before Hardin, the English philosopher
Thomas Hobbes anticipated the inevitable outcome of freedom
in the commons in LEVIATHAN (1651):

    "And because the condition of man . . . is a condition
  of war of every one against every one, in which case
  every one is governed by his own reason, and there is
  nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto
  him in preserving his life against his enemies; it
  followeth that in such a condition every man has a
  right to every thing, even to one another's body. And
  therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to
  every thing endureth, there can be no security to any
  man . . . "

    "To this war of every man against every man, this also
    is consequent;  that nothing can be unjust.  The notions
  of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no
  place.  Where there is no common power, there is no law;
  where no law, no injustice.  Force and fraud are in war
  the two cardinal virtues."

   Every social phenomenon, according to Hobbes, is based
upon an endless drive for power that emerges when individuals
compare themselves to other individuals.  The result is that
the objects one seeks to obtain are not pursued for their
own sake, but because someone else also seeks to obtain them.

   "Scarcity" is the relationship between unlimited desire
and limited means.  For Hobbes, scarcity is a permanent
condition of humanity caused by the continuous, innate
drive for power.

   Society becomes a lifeboat in which all the passengers are
fighting each other.  In order to escape universal ruin, men
will create a great Leviathan, a semi-absolute state that
controls its subjects and prevents permanent scarcity from
developing into a war of "all-against-all."

LOCKE'S TEMPORARY WAR OF ALL AGAINST NATURE

   From Plato to our present society, we can trace the faith
in human reason through the ideas of Aristotle, Bacon,
Descartes, Hobbes, and especially the English philosopher
John Locke.  In his SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT (1690),
Locke argued that there is a natural law governing humans
and that it can be known by human reason:  "The state of
nature has a law of nature to govern it . . . that being all
equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his
life, health, liberty, or possessions."

   Locke did not accept Hobbes' idea that scarcity results from
an innate drive for power.  Locke said it was the invention
of money that caused scarcity.  Prior to money, it was
solely the usefulness of things that counted, and every man
should have only as much property as he needed.(8)  Money
caused scarcity by enabling a man "to enlarge his
possessions" more than he needed.(9)  Although Locke saw
money as the source of the problem, he also saw that
"improving" the earth could help to alleviate scarcity.(10)
Moreover, improving the earth didn't harm anyone because
there was still plenty of land left:  "Nor was this
appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any
prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough,
and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could
use."

   So rather than attack the source of the problem as Hobbes
did, Locke chose instead to treat the symptoms by attacking
nature.  No doubt the great moralist would have followed
Hobbes for social reform if all the land had been taken.
Thus, Locke's temporary -- till the land is gone -- answer
to the scarcity caused by money was to exploit the earth,
and Hobbes' permanent war of "all-against-all" was reflected
in Locke's temporary war of "all-against-nature."

   Locke's ideas legitimized colonialism as a quest to
alleviate scarcity.  For example, America was an empty
continent that could be exploited to help alleviate the
effects of scarcity in Europe.  Cecil Rhodes, a well-known
imperialist of the last century, even wrote about the
necessity of an ongoing exploitation of the universe:
"I would annex the planets if I could."  More recently,
former president Reagan in a speech after the failure of the
Challenger, told the American people that we have to conquer
space in order to overcome war, scarcity, and misery on
earth.  His argument for more exploitation is exactly the
same as that given by Locke in the seventeenth century.

   Both Hobbes and Locke knew that scarcity originates in
human relations and that people trying to escape scarcity
would inadvertently spread and propagate it to the ends of
the earth.  Even into outer space.

   From the beginning, rationality has never held a prominent
place in our society.  In the final analysis, the call for
endless economic growth is rooted in a hidden, insatiable
drive for power;  rational debate rarely manages to bring
this fact out into the open, let alone confront it.  Modern
society remains a crumbling monument to self-deception and
exploitation.

DEAD END

    "Every man . . . is left perfectly free to pursue his
  own interests in his own way, and to bring both his
  industry and capital into competition with those of
  any other man, or order of men."    -- Adam Smith (1776)

    "We human beings are being led into a dead end -- all
  too literally.  We are living by an ideology of death
  and accordingly we are destroying our own humanity and
  killing the planet.  Even the one great success of the
  program that has governed us, the attainment of material
  affluence, is now giving way to poverty.  The United
  States is just now gaining a foretaste of the suffering
  that global economic policies, so enthusiastically
  embraced, have inflicted on hundreds of millions of
  others.  If we continue on our present paths, future
  generations, if there are to be any, are condemned to
  misery."                         -- Daly and Cobb (1989)

   It is now obvious to anyone brave enough to look, that
our continuing self-deception and exploitation no longer
contribute to the survival of the species.  If we are to
survive, we must now recognize the necessity of giving up
the fatal freedom to exploit the commons.  Locke's temporary
war of all-against-nature must now come to an end.

   When a society is free to rob banks, it is less free, not
more so.  When individuals mutually agreed (passed laws) not
to rob banks -- gave up the freedom to rob banks -- they
became more free, not less so.  Only by giving up our fatal
freedom can we free ourselves from the inexorable, deadly
logic of the commons.  Only then can we become free to
establish a new organizing principle for humanity.

   We've known for 4000 years that freedom in the commons
brings ruin to all.  What are we waiting for?
_______________________________

(1) In 1992, the two most prestigious scientific
 institutions in the world, the National Academy of Sciences
 and the Royal Society, issued POPULATION GROWTH, RESOURCE
 CONSUMPTION, AND A SUSTAINABLE WORLD which ended with:
 "The future of our planet is in the balance.  Sustainable
 development can be achieved, but only if irreversible
 degradation of the environment can be halted in time.
 The next 30 years may be crucial."
  Archived http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page7.htm

 Also in 1992, a WARNING TO HUMANITY was issued by the Union
 of Concerned Scientists that began:  "Human beings and the
 natural world are on a collision course. Human activities
 inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the
 environment and on critical resources.  If not checked, many
 of our current practices put at serious risk the future that
 we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms,
 and may so alter the living world that it will be unable
 to sustain life in the manner that we know.  Fundamental
 changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our
 present course will bring about."

 This warning was signed by over 1,500 members of national,
 regional, and international science academies. Sixty-nine
 nations from all parts of Earth are represented, including
 each of the twelve most populous nations and the nineteen
 largest economic powers.

 It was also signed by 99 Nobel Prize winners.
  Archived http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page8.htm

 And finally, in 1993 THE GROWING WORLD POPULATION, a joint
 statement by 58 of the world's scientific academies said:
 "In our judgement, humanity's ability to deal successfully
 with its social, economic, and environmental problems will
 require the achievement of zero population growth within
 the lifetime of our children."
  Archived http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page75.htm

(2) The drive for power is the process by which we seek
 predictability as a means of avoiding or reducing anxiety.
 The more we feel in control, the more we can relax.  The
 more power we have been granted or won or achieved, the more
 we generally assume we will be able to maintain control.

(3) Here when I use the term "capitalism", I refer to
 American capitalism:  From an ecological point of view,
 capitalism may be seen as an organized process to ingest
 natural, living systems (including people) in one end,
 and excrete unnatural, dead garbage and waste (including
 wasted people) out the other.  From a thermodynamic view,
 capitalism may be seen as the conversion of low-entropy
 matter/energy into high-entropy matter/energy.  From an
 economic view, capitalism may be seen as the high-speed
 depletion of natural capital.  From a political view,
 capitalism may be seen as the world's dominant political
 system -- one-dollar-one-vote.

(4) p. 5, SHRINKING FIELDS: Cropland Loss in a World of
 Eight Billion, Gary Gardner;  Worldwatch Institute, Paper
 #131, July 1996.  Worldwatch Institute, 1776 Massachusetts
 Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036, Phone: 202-452-1999; FAX:
 202-296-7365, [log in to unmask], http://www.worldwatch.org/

(5) http://www.ussl.ars.usda.gov/salinity.htm

(6) pp. 263-264, THE MORAL ANIMAL ,Robert Wright; Pantheon,
 1994; ISBN 0-679-40773-1.

(7) http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page4.htm

(8) ". . . what portion a man carved to himself, was easily
 seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve
 himself too much, or take more than he needed."

(9) ". . . there is land enough in the world to suffice
 double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money, and
 the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced
 (by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them . . ."
 Locke continues, "Thus in the beginning all the world was
 America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as
 money was any where known.  Find out something that hath the
 use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see
 the same man will begin presently to enlarge his
 possessions."

(10) "God and his reason commanded [man] to subdue the earth,
 i.e. improve it for the benefit of life . . ."  Locke said
 that the earth needs improving because nature herself is
 nearly worthless:  "I think it will be but a very modest
 computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful
 to the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labour:
 nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our
 use, and cast up the several expences about them, what in
 them is purely owing to nature, and what to labour, we shall
 find, that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly
 to be put on the account of labour."

Hobbes Locke and Smith are available several places on the
web. See, for example:
http://www-lsi.upc.es/www/links/fun/booktitles.html

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