These are the main contentions of those who use Darwinism as a defence
of the bourgeois system. Strong as these arguments might appear at
first sight, they were not hard for the Socialists to overcome. To a
large extent, they are the old arguments used against Socialism, but
wearing the new garb of Darwinistic terminology, and they show an utter
ignorance of Socialism as well as of capitalism.
Those who compare the social organism with the animal body leave
unconsidered the fact that men do not differ like various cells or
organs, but only in degree of their capacity. In society the division
of labor cannot go so far that all capacities should perish at the
expense of one. What is more, everyone who understands something of
Socialism knows that the efficient division of labor does not cease
with Socialism; that first under Socialism real divisions will be
possible. The difference between the workers, their ability, and
employments will not cease; all that will cease is the difference
between workers and exploiters.
While it is positively true that in the struggle for existence those
animals that are strong, healthy and well survive, yet this does not
happen under capitalist competition. Here victory does not depend upon
perfection of those engaged in the struggle, but in something that
lies outside of their body. While this struggle may hold good with the
small bourgeois, where success depends upon personal abilities and
qualifications, yet with the further development of capital, success
does not depend upon personal abilities, but upon the possession of
capital. The one who has a larger capital at command will soon conquer
the one who has a smaller capital at his disposal, although the
latter may be more skillful. It is not the personal qualities, but
the possession of money that decides who the victor shall be in the
struggle. When the small capitalists perish, they do not perish as men
but as capitalists; they are not weeded out from among the living, but
from the bourgeoisie. They still exist, but no longer as capitalists.
The competition existing in the capitalist system is therefore
something different in requisites and results from the animal struggle
for existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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