A brief outline of Darwinian Historical Materialism
1. In sketching out a Darwinian historical materialism I would begin by emphasizing the long-term rises in levels of production, of population, and of military power that have occurred, to varying degrees, not only in Eurasia but in most habitable regions. Any attempt to understand human history needs to explain these fundamental historical trends, if possible within a general explanatory scheme.[1]
Rational choice explanations are, perhaps, the obvious ones to begin with. Such explanations would suggest that enough people enough of the time have been knowledgeable and rational enough to choose more effective productive and military techniques and the organizational forms (social and military) conducive to their use and development. Rising levels of production would then, presumably, explain rising population levels.
Explanations of this sort presuppose, of course, that enough people know which are the better techniques and the appropriate organizational forms. The lack of, or the undeveloped state of, the natural and social sciences throughout most of human history, however, leads me to think that such a presupposition is unwarranted. Even if people wanted to achieve some form of "adaptation," there seems to be no reason to assume that they were generally knowledgeable or rational enough to know which traits were more adaptive.
Moreover, although human behaviour is undoubtedly intentional (and even occasionally rational), both intra- and inter-societal conflict and cooperation give rise to too many unpredictable and unintended consequences to allow us to see rational choice as the unmediated basis for the long-term trends that occur in human history.
It is more plausible to assume that cultural innovations are effectively "random" with respect to the long-term trends adverted to above (much as, in natural selection, genetic variations are regarded as "random" with respect to their effect on reproductive success). Such random innovations, however, would clearly not issue in these long-term directional trends unless they were subject to some kind of selection process, perhaps one akin to natural selection.
The central claim of the theory of natural selection is that, within organic populations, differential reproductive success leads to the spread of those inherited variations that enhance (relative) reproductive success. Within these populations, consequently, there are tendencies towards increasing reproductive success and, therefore, accelerating population growth. Whether these tendencies are realized as long-term trends depends upon, among other things, the extent to which a population can continue to extract resources from its environment, given that resources are always limited and that there is usually competition from other organisms.
I would argue, somewhat analogously, that within human populations differential reproductive and/or military success lead to the expansion of the groups possessing the (behaviourally-transmitted) cultural variations that most enhance reproductive and/or military success (often at the expense of those groups that do not possess the cultural variations that enhance reproductive and/or military success), and therefore lead to the spread of those cultural variations. Consequently, there will be persistent tendencies within human populations to increasing reproductive fitness (and accelerating population growth) and increasing military power.[2]
But there is a missing element within this Darwinian approach to human history, the addition of which will enable us to establish the connection with historical materialism. It is helpful here to continue to think in terms of an analogy with natural selection. I have said that natural selection claims that differential reproductive success leads to the spread of those inherited variations that enhance reproductive success. But what is it that explains which variations, in particular cases, will most enhance reproductive success (and that therefore explains which variations will tend to spread because of differential reproductive success)? The standard answer, I would suggest, is that it is the population’s relationship to its environment that explains which variations will most enhance reproductive success (and how organisms extract resources from their environment might be the most important element of that population-environment relationship). So, for example, whether there is selection for greater speed or greater strength in a population of predators depends upon the predators’ methods of predation and the (evolving) nature of the species that they prey upon.
We can ask an analogous question of our Darwinian approach to history. Differential reproductive and/or military success, I have said, lead to the spread of those cultural variations that enhance reproductive and/or military success. But what is it that explains which variations, in particular cases, will most enhance reproductive and/or military success (and that therefore explains which variations will tend to spread because of differential reproductive and/or military success)? The answer suggested by the analogy with natural selection is that it is the human population’s relationship with its environment that plays this explanatory role.
I would be more specific, and say that the most important element of this population-environment relationship is the existing character of production in particular times and places (productive techniques, but also productively-relevant characteristics of geography, climate, ecology, and so on).
Why is production the most important element here? Because, in general, it will be those groups that have higher levels of production (of the ability, in other words, to extract and process resources from their environment) that will be both reproductively and militarily more successful, for several fairly obvious reasons. More productive groups can reproduce more people per unit area. More productive groups can, therefore, produce more warriors, can better equip, train and supply those warriors, and can sustain this in warfare for longer than less productive groups. Consequently, the variations that are conducive to higher levels of production (better productive techniques, social relations and cultural practices and values that allow or encourage productive development, and so on) will tend to spread. There will, therefore, be a tendency within human populations to rising levels of production per capita (and increasing productivity, or output per unit labour input).
Thus it is the existing character of production that explains which variations will most enhance production, and therefore explains which variations will most enhance reproductive and military success (given that variations in production largely explain variations in reproductive and military success) and thus tend to spread.
So, to reconstruct the preceding argument in a series of steps:
1. Characteristics of production largely explain which available cultural variations will most enhance production.
2. Cultural variations that enhance production tend thereby to enhance reproductive and/or military success (given that variations in levels of production largely explain variations in reproductive and military success).
3. Cultural variations that enhance reproductive and/or military success tend to spread within populations.
4. Characteristics of production, therefore, explain which cultural variations will tend to spread within populations.
To put the same point slightly differently: those cultural variations that, given the existing character of production, enhance levels of production, will also tend thereby to enhance levels of reproductive and/or military success, and thus tend to spread. These three tendencies - to rising levels of production, reproductive success and military power - are, in my view, absolutely fundamental to human history.
All of the above, of course, assumes that the relevant traits are behaviourally transmitted from generation to generation largely within groups, and that there is a sufficient supply of cultural innovation to provide the necessary between-group cultural variation. In their different ways, most, if not all, historians and social scientists implicitly accept these assumptions.[3]
2. Given this central explanatory role of production, it follows that the outcomes of the above processes in different regions will depend upon the characteristics of production in those regions (including productively-relevant characteristics of geography, climate, ecology, and so on). We should expect different outcomes to the processes, consequently, in such differentially resourced regions as Eurasia/North Africa, the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and Australia.
(It should, however, be borne in mind that, in developing their productive techniques, human populations not only transform their environments, but also transform their relationship to their environment in the process, transforming the circumstances that are productively relevant, and thereby the constraints and opportunities of the selective processes in which these groups are involved.)
Reproductive “competition” and military conflict lead, then, to the expansion of the more productive societies, and thus a long-term tendency to productive development. But it is characteristics of production in particular circumstances that explain which changes in productive practices will enhance levels of production (and thus reproductive and/or military success). Characteristics of production in particular times and places explain, for example, whether shifting away from hunting and gathering and towards horticulture and herding will enhance production (and therefore reproductive and/or military success) or not. And the characteristics of production in different regions also determine to what extent intensifying agricultural production would be productively advantageous (and thus reproductively and/or militarily advantageous). It is their differing productive potentials, therefore, that explain which regions will tend to undergo the most rapid productive development.
It is also characteristics of production that explain the development of new social forms. In regions where production could develop relatively rapidly (in the temperate, Mediterranean and sub-tropical climatic zones of Eurasia, for instance), the development and spread of new social forms that enhanced production also occurred relatively rapidly. Where production could only develop relatively slowly (in the pre-Columbian Americas, for instance), then the development and spread of new production-enhancing social forms occurred relatively slowly. In regions where there could be relatively little indigenous productive development (in Aboriginal Australia, for instance), then relatively little production-enhancing social change occurred. In all of these regions, differential reproductive and military success sifted random cultural variations, selecting those that enhanced levels of production, but the long-term outcomes were different in each region because the possibilities of indigenous productive development were different in each region.
Moreover, although military conflict (along with reproductive “competition”) leads to the expansion of the more productive societies, and thus a long-term tendency to productive development, it is differences in the form of production that explain differences in the form of military conflict. Thus, the development of production over the millennia, from hunting-gathering to horticulture-herding to intensive agriculture to industrial production, although partly selected for by warfare, explains changes in the forms of warfare.
Warfare itself may also tend to select for larger societies, and denser populations, that can field larger armies. But the size of societies that is actually selected for by warfare is largely explained by facts about production in those societies: the more developed the productive technology (including the technologies of transportation and communication), the larger the society and the denser the population, and therefore the larger the army, that can actually be sustained. So it is productive development that primarily explains the increasing size of societies and armies over the long term. (In periods of productive decline, conversely, there will be selection for smaller societies with smaller armies.)
So, production, reproduction and warfare together explain historical change, but they play different roles in that explanation. Historical change is “driven” by random cultural innovations (in productive techniques, social structures, and cultural practices and values). Differential reproductive and/or military success, however, “sift” those random cultural innovations, and this leads to the spread of those cultural variations that enhance reproduction and military success (largely by enhancing production), in the relevant areas and the relevant times - but they can only do so at the rate, in the direction, and to the extent that is allowed by the different possibilities of productive development at different places and times. Combining this explanatory role of production with the “mechanisms” of differential reproductive and/or military success justifies designating this approach to history as a Darwinian historical materialism.
I am not trying to explain everything about human history; I am merely trying to explain as much as possible with as few assumptions as possible. Nevertheless, I am convinced that an understanding of these processes of production, reproduction and warfare (or feeding, fornicating and fighting, as evolutionary biologists seem to phrase it in their more polite moments), of the interrelationships between them, of the persistent tendencies they give rise to, and the implications of this for other cultural traits, can significantly improve our understanding of human history.
- This brief outline adopts a very broad-brush approach to theory and evidence, lacking both detail and a scholarly apparatus of footnotes and references. Those who are interested in following these ideas up should consult the other sections of this website and the works mentioned in the bibliography of Darwinian historical materialisms.
- Higher reproductive success can, of course, contribute to greater military success – and vice versa – but they are not necessarily connected, and can occur independently of each other.
- The above formulations raise an obvious problem for this approach to history in that they seem to involve a form of group selection, and group selection is, of course, controversial. I will return to the issue of group selection elsewhere on this website.