1
Does Historical Materialism need Natural Selection?
PAUL NOLAN
ABSTRACT: It is a standard criticism of Cohen’s account of historical materialism (one,
indeed, made by Cohen himself) that the consequence explanations that connect
productive development with changes in economic structures (and superstructures) are
less convincing than they could be in the absence of an account of how the propensity of
specific relations of production to enhance productive power (given the level of
productive power already achieved) could explain the spread of those relations, and thus
changes in economic structures. In this paper, I argue that Cohen’s rational-choice case
for the explanatory primacy of productive forces over relations of production in fact
provides a general answer to that question, one with which any further elaborations of
historical materialism’s consequence explanations must be consistent. However
implausible rational choice may be as a general mechanism, in the absence of an
alternative mechanism to explain the fact of productive development it cannot be finally
dismissed. But I go on to argue that a mechanism involving a selection of production
relations and other cultural traits through differential survival and reproductive success is
both more robust than Cohen’s mechanism, and maintains the explanatory primacy of
productive power. This revision to the foundations of historical materialism has important
implications for the way that we conceive of both historical materialism and human
history.
Introduction
It has often been said that the publication of G. A. Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of
History: A Defence inaugurated a decisive transformation in our understanding of
historical materialism, and this whether we were sympathetic or unsympathetic to the
book’s account of the theory (and its style of argument). Historical materialism needed
and deserved the kind of sustained analytical attention that the Darwinian theory of
natural selection, for instance, standardly receives, and Cohen gave it that attention.
Before I go on to make some critical remarks, I should say that I regard Cohen’s
reconstruction of historical materialism as probably being as coherent an account as
possible while remaining reasonably faithful to Marx’s intentions. I also happen to agree
with much of Cohen’s account. His clarification of the conceptual repertoire of historical
materialism (productive forces or powers, material and social relations of production, the
distinction between the economic structure and the superstructure in terms of a prior
distinction between powers and rights, and so on); his assertion of the explanatory
primacy of productive power; his appreciation of the significance of the long-term
development of productive power for supporting that explanatory primacy; his argument
for the (partly) functional nature of the explanations in question; and so on. Cohen’s may
not be the final word on these topics, but his work represents a decisive step forward in
our understanding of historical materialism. Nor does this list exhaust the achievements
of Cohen’s book. There is hardly an important topic in Marxist social theory on which the
book does not have something illuminating to say.
2
Where I disagree with Cohen, in a way that I hope the ensuing discussion will make
clear, is in his account of the fundamental processes underlying historical materialism.
Historical Materialism
I take the fundamental claim of historical materialism to be that there is a tendency for
social phenomena to change to those that will, given the nature of the existing productive
forces, enhance productive power. The nature of the existing productive forces,
therefore, explains forms of society (such things as work relations, economic structures,
legal and political superstructures, and ideologies), and there is a strong tendency for
productive power to develop historically.
Cohen (1978, 160-3, 249, 278-9; 1983, 201-2; 1988, 7-8, 10-3) argues that historical
materialist explanations are (partly) functional, or consequence, explanations in which the
rise and persistence of economic structures are explained by the propensity of these
structures to allow or encourage productive development. But historical materialism
must, consequently, explain how those social relationships that have this effect on
productive power become established (Cohen, 1978, 285-6; 1988, 11-2). As Cohen puts it
(1988, 12):
How does the fact that the economic structure promotes the development of the
productive forces explain the character of the economic structure?
Cohen (1978, 266, 271, 285-6; 1988, 11-2, 18) calls answers to this question
“elaborations” or “mechanisms,” and he says (1988, 12) that he provides some “not very
satisfactory” answers to the question in chapter 10 of Karl Marx’s Theory of History,
where he outlines four elaborations and applies them to historical materialist
explanations. But I would argue that Cohen provides a partial, but nevertheless general,
answer to the question in chapter 6 of that book, in his case for the explanatory primacy
of the productive forces over relations of production and economic structures (1978, 15060).
Cohen (1978, 152-5, 158-9; 1983, 198; 1988, 20-5, 85-6) argues that people have the
trans-historical intelligence to generate improved productive techniques, and that they (or
enough of them, enough of the time) are rational enough, in conditions of scarcity, to
choose those relations of production that allow or encourage this productive development
(because such development will reduce the burden of human labour).1 So, “how does the
fact that the economic structure promotes the development of the productive forces
explain the character of the economic structure?” By enough people, enough of the time,
recognising that fact and (in conditions of scarcity) rationally choosing the relations that
There is perhaps a tension in Cohen’s case for primacy between the roles played by the desire to reduce
the burden of human labour and the desire to alleviate scarcity. Insofar as improved productive techniques
are used to reduce the burden of human labour, they will not alleviate scarcity, and, of course, vice versa. I
say “perhaps” because Cohen’s (1978, 152) definition of scarcity as a kind of potential scarcity may
resolve the tension.
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allow or encourage productive development (and prevailing in any (class) conflict with
those opposed to such social changes). This form of explanatory primacy can fairly be
described as a rational-choice primacy.2
Cohen likens historical materialism’s needed elaborations to Darwin’s (excellent) and
Lamarck’s (unacceptable) “elaborations” of natural-historical functional explanations
(1978, 271, 285-6; 1988, 12). But Cohen claims that, because historical materialism lacks
excellent (or even “very satisfactory”) elaborations, the theory is in a similar position to
natural history in its pre-Darwin state.
Cohen (1978, 287-9) outlines several possible elaborations of functional explanations in
social theory: purposive, Darwinian, Lamarckian, and a fourth, a special case of the
purposive elaboration, involving self-deception. But he does this without reference to his
case for primacy, and therefore without acknowledging that this case has implications for
any possible elaborations. In fact, Cohen’s purposive elaboration seems to me to add little
to his rational-choice case for primacy. His second, Darwinian elaboration, on the other
hand, may not actually be consistent with his case for primacy.
Cohen (1978, 280, 287-9) provides an illustrative example of the Darwinian elaboration,
in which producing units within a competitive economy exhibit variations in size.
Because the larger producing units are able to achieve greater economies of scale,
competition favours the survival of the larger producing units, and the median size of
producing units increases over time. Therefore, the increase in the median size of the
producing units occurred because such an increase brought about economies of scale.
One of the features that make this elaboration Darwinian, Cohen (1978, 288) says, is that
the variations in size are chance variations in that, because no one is aware of the
functional value of greater size, “the explanation of the variation is unconnected with the
functional value of greater scale,” and the units vary in size for a variety of fortuitous
reasons.3
It is hard to see, though, how this Darwinian mechanism could be used to elaborate
functional explanations of economic structures by productive forces in Cohen’s version
of historical materialism. Cohen’s rational-choice case for primacy assumes that (enough)
people choose particular production relations precisely because they know about their
Alan Carling (1993, 38) aptly describes Cohen’s version of historical materialism as involving an
“intentional primacy.” I prefer the term “rational-choice primacy,” however, because , although his
argument is unencumbered by the conceptual paraphernalia of rational-choice theory, that is the kind of
intentional primacy that Cohen suggests.
3
In discussing some conceptual issues involved in functional explanations, Cohen (1978, 281-2) gives an
example of a society that “took up a religion because they liked the prophet’s looks, and not because they
needed a religion (though they did need a religion).” Subsequently, nine non-religious societies die out, but
the one religious society survives. Cohen says that this is an illustration of an unsuccessful functional
explanation of the presence of religion in that society. It has always seemed to me, however, that if, as
Cohen implies, this society survived because it had a religion, then this is a second example of a successful
functional explanation with a Darwinian elaboration. The elaboration is Darwinian because the choice of
the successful variation (the religion) is “unconnected with the functional value of” that variation.
2
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functional value. If the choice of the appropriate production relations is “unconnected
with the functional value of” those relations, perhaps because no individual or group
actually knows which relations of production are best for productive development, then
this is not an example of Cohen’s kind of primacy.
It is possible to render this Darwinian elaboration consistent with Cohen’s case for
primacy if (but only if) the relations of production are rationally chosen and maintained in
order to encourage productive development by means of a competitive (market) economy
in which “blind,” quasi-Darwinian selection could operate. Such “Darwinian” selection
must, therefore, take place entirely within intentional selection. This would make Cohen’s
Darwinian elaboration, like the one involving self-deception, merely another “special
case” of his purposive elaboration. Moreover, given that “Darwinian” explanations need
to specify a selection mechanism, and the only one that Cohen mentions is a competitive
market, this seems to limit its possible applications to the rise and persistence of
capitalist economic structures.
Of these four elaborations, Cohen applies only the purposive and the Darwinian to
historical materialist explanations of the economic structure by the productive forces, and
these explanations focus on “the adaptation of the economic structure to the productive
forces” (1978, 289, 292-3) during the rise of capitalism. Unfortunately, one of the social
variations involved is not a chance variation in the sense specified by Cohen.
Consistently with his case for primacy, but not consistently with his Darwinian
elaboration, capitalist relations of production were rationally chosen because of their
functional value in encouraging productive development. And, of course, it is the
relations that have been rationally chosen that are historically the most significant
because they are the ones that eventually triumph. This is not an example of a Darwinian
elaboration, then, precisely because the choice of the triumphant variation is connected
with the functional value of that variation. It is not, therefore, a “chance variation” in the
required sense.
It is perhaps significant that Cohen uses the word “competitive”, rather than “Darwinian”,
to describe this process (1978, 293). In a competitive elaboration, but not in a Darwinian
elaboration, (some) people rationally choose the production relations that become
established because of their beneficial effect on productive power.4
Now, while this example is certainly competitive rather than Darwinian, in reality the
distinction between Darwinian and competitive selection is difficult to draw, and the
difference might anyway be a matter of degree. What if half of the people who chose the
more adaptive, capitalist relations did so for “rational” reasons (because they recognised
the “functional value” of the relations), while half of them made the choice for “nonrational” reasons (perhaps because they thought that God favoured capitalist
4
In response to criticism, Cohen (1988, 25-9) develops two alternative arguments for productive force
primacy, the second of which might seem to be Darwinian. Because it involves “the rationality premiss,”
albeit a “more restrained use” of it (Cohen, 1988, 27), however, it is actually a competitive elaboration
(though one that sees military, rather than economic, competition as the selective mechanism).
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enterprises)?5 Perhaps such a situation could best be described as involving a mixed
elaboration, with a Darwinian element and a competitive (and therefore a purposive,
rational-choice) element. For reasons given elsewhere (Nolan 2002a, 82), however, I am
sceptical about the extent of human rationality in complex, real-world situations, and I
would usually be inclined to regard competitive processes in such situations as largely
Darwinian processes involving some form of “blind,” selective mechanism.
Cohen, of course, may be less sceptical about human rationality than I am, and he could
claim that the picture he paints here of straightforwardly purposive and more complex
competitive elements both playing a part in the rise of capitalism is not unrealistic. But
there is, nevertheless, a potential problem with all of this.
Cohen (1978, 135; see also Cohen, 1983, 205 and Cohen and Kymlicka, 1988, 87) points
out that, for historical materialism, productive development does not take place “for a
miscellany of uncoordinated reasons.” As I noted above, however, Cohen does not
acknowledge that his case for primacy limits the elaborations that he can consistently
propose. Indeed, Cohen (1978, 287-8) perhaps gives the impression that historical
materialism’s functional explanations can receive elaborations as radically different as
Darwinian and Lamarckian “elaborations” of natural-historical functional explanations.
But Darwinism and Lamarckism, notwithstanding Darwin’s own Lamarckian lapses, are
actually very different theories, with very different implications for how the organic
world works (Dawkins, 1988, 288-303).
This is at least to suggest, therefore, that productive development can occur for “a
miscellany of uncoordinated reasons;” as uncoordinated, indeed inconsistent, as natural
selection and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Now, not only must the reasons
for productive development be “coordinated” in some way, but the scope for different
elaborations is perhaps even narrower than this suggests. All elaborations must be
consistent with Cohen’s case for primacy. All elaborations must, therefore, involve the
rational choice of relations of production that allow or encourage productive
development. So any elaborations suggested by Cohen cannot really be analogous to a
general mechanism such as natural selection. They can only be analogous to particular
elaborations of natural selection, such as optimal foraging theory or kin selection theory.
Purposive and Darwinian elaborations of historical materialist explanations may be
compatible, but we would need to have an argument to show that this is not simply
providing a “miscellany of uncoordinated reasons” for productive development. And we
would also need a new case for primacy, one that is not so dependent upon a rationalchoice mechanism.
5
Cohen (1996, 14-6) makes a similar point in arguing that his account of historical materialism does not
rule out an elaboration involving chance variation and social selection. I think that if Cohen compares what
he says about chance variation in footnote 1 on page 288 of Karl Marx’s Theory of History (1978) with
what he says about the mathematicians on pages 15-6 of his Imprints interview (1996), he will see that this
elaboration, whatever other merits it might have, is not Darwinian in his original sense.
6
But perhaps we need that anyway. Cohen’s critics have argued that, given the
discrepancies between individual and collective rationality and between asocial and
socially located rationality, it is improbable that individuals or groups will standardly
combine both the interest in and the power to bring about productive development. Cohen
acknowledges that his critics are right to see problems here (Cohen 1988, 26; Cohen and
Kymlicka 1988, 95-7).6
Partly for reasons of my own, I too think that Cohen’s case for primacy is less than
decisive. Although Cohen (1978, 41-2, 45-7; 1988, 4) emphasises the centrality of the
growth of knowledge in the development of productive power, he fails to emphasise that
knowledge is a prerequisite of the rational choice of which social relations, in the given
social circumstances, and of which productive techniques, in the given natural
circumstances, would bring about productive improvement. Such knowledge is just as
necessary as the combination of interest and power and, for most of human history, even
more unlikely (Nolan 2002a, 82).7 So the rational choice of those relations of production
that will allow or encourage productive development is neither a robust underpinning for
the primacy of productive power nor (for most of human history) a realistic mechanism
for historical materialism’s functional explanations (to the extent that these are different).
But whatever the force of these criticisms, Cohen (1978, 153-5; see also Cohen and
Kymlicka 1988, 99-105) effectively trumps them by pointing out that, historically,
productive improvement occurs more frequently than productive regression. My
impression is that some of his critics do not fully appreciate the force of this argument.
There really is no question that, whatever short-term or localised regressions have taken
place, Cohen is correct here. Productive development, defined in terms of output per unit
labour input, has undoubtedly occurred over the long-term (Harris 1993, 217, 219).
Cohen’s case for primacy, although it does not provide sufficient grounds to predict a
strong enough tendency to productive development, does begin to explain this trend to
productive development. As long as Cohen’s critics do not provide a better explanation of
this long-term productive development, their criticisms will remain inconclusive. If we
want to develop a stronger case for primacy and a more robust general mechanism for
historical materialism (and these surely amount to the same thing), then we need to utilise
Darwinian natural selection, not merely as an elaboration of a theory developed without
reference to natural selection, but in a much more full-blooded manner.
A Natural Selection of Cultural Traits
Natural selection claims that inherited traits that enhance reproductive success (given the
place of the organisms within their environment) tend to be more successfully reproduced
than traits that do not so enhance reproductive success. Reproductively more successful
6
See Cohen (1988, 26-9) and Cohen and Kymlicka (1988, 101-3) for some attempts to deal with these
problems.
7
Alan Carling (1988, 220-1, 225-8) says that Cohen’s case for primacy involves a “transhistorical”
rationality, whereas only an historically “situated” rationality is really plausible. But my criticism seems to
be (following Carling’s classification of rational-choice theories) that Cohen’s case for primacy demands
too much in the way of cognitive rationality, whereas only a much “thinner” form of (instrumental)
rationality can be realistically attributed to most historical actors most of the time.
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traits therefore gradually replace reproductively less successful traits within populations.
I think that it is possible to adapt this Darwinian logic in order to apply it to human
history and historical materialism.
It is surely uncontroversial to say that, within human populations, behavioural variations
can explain variations in rates of survival and reproduction. So, for example, a foraging
group that took only those prey species that maximised its nutritional returns per unit of
foraging time would, other things being equal, have a higher rate of survival, and
probably of reproductive success, than groups that did not hunt so efficiently.
But to say that such behavioural variations are explained by genetic variations, are thus
inherited, and therefore become more or less common in successive generations through
their effect upon reproductive success, is much more controversial. Indeed, there are
good reasons to think that the changes in social behaviours that historical materialism is
interested in are not genetically explained. Before I can apply this sequence of claims to
human society and history, then, I must amend it to say that the relevant behavioural
variations, rather than being genetically generated and reproductively transmitted, are
intellectually generated and behaviourally transmitted. In other words, they are cultural
variations.
This substitution of cultural variations for genetic variations raises an obvious problem.
It would be convenient if I could assume that cultural traits are passed on in a
straightforward way from a parent to its offspring.8 However, although this can be true of
cultural variations, it might not be. Cultural variations can be transmitted to nonoffspring, and they may not be transmitted to offspring. So there is a disassociation
between the transmission of the relevant cultural characteristics and the process of
biological reproduction, such that a cultural trait that reduces reproductive success could
spread within a human population, while a cultural trait that enhances reproductive
success might not spread.9
Given that cultural traits are likely to be relatively easily transmitted between individuals
that are not related in the required parent-offspring way, it is difficult to use individuallevel selection in Darwinian explanations of historical change. However, if cultural traits
are transmitted from generation to generation within human groups,10 this should increase
the ratio of between-group variation to within-group variation. If reproduction takes place
largely within those groups, then we can apply a form of group selection to human
history.11 Those cultural variations that happen to enhance the reproductive success of the
8
Not that genetically-based traits are straightforwardly transmitted, of course, in sexually reproducing
species.
9
This is a problem for any attempt to use Darwinian forms of explanation in social theory, even for those,
such as the Darwinian theory of the firm, that use differential social reproduction, rather than differential
biological reproduction, as the selective mechanism.
10
Within human groups, that is, more than between human groups.
11
Compare the point made by such an arch-opponent of group selection as Richard Dawkins (1989, 263).
Group selection is a common, but often unstated, assumption in attempts to use Darwinian forms of
explanation in social theory. A Darwinian theory of the firm, for instance, seems to involve group selection.
I see no obvious reason to think, incidentally, that group selection is inconsistent with a sophisticated
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groups that exhibit them, given the place of the groups within their environment, will
tend to be more successfully transmitted than alternative cultural traits that do not so
enhance reproductive success, and will therefore spread within the wider population.12
Perhaps some would regard these as implausible claims, given the ease with which
people seem to reproduce across linguistic, national, ethnic and other group boundaries,
and the ease with which groups seem to adopt cultural traits from other groups. But this
perception may be derived from modern conditions that are historically highly unusual.
Recent research on cultural transmission in foraging and farming/herding societies seems
to show that cultural information tends to be passed on within groups, from older to
younger generations, mainly from parents to offspring, and usually to offspring of the
same gender. This transmission tends to take place during childhood and adolescence,
and is essentially completed by the mid-teens (Shennan, 2002, 40-5, 48-51). The
heritability of cultural traits, moreover, seems to be at least as high as that of genetic traits
(Shennan, 2002, 42-3).13
I would not conclude from this evidence that an individual-level selection of cultural
traits would work as a standard mechanism even in more complex societies (though such
processes may occur in relatively simple societies). But I think that such evidence would
support a group-level selection of cultural traits.
The transmission of cultural traits within groups that reproduce endogenously would
imply that the human species is divided into groups that are both culturally distinct and
reproductively discrete. If language is taken as a key marker of culture, then it should be
possible to detect groups that are both linguistically and genetically distinct. Recent work
in molecular genetics and comparative linguistics seems to show that there is indeed a
significant correlation between genetic and linguistic classifications of the human
species.14
It is important to realise that nobody is claiming that these genetic differences between
peoples are causally related to the linguistic (and any suggested cultural) differences. In
other words, these are not “races.” The genetic differences are simply markers of a
relatively distinct reproductive history. But if leftist readers are still inclined to regard this
methodological individualism, in which the characteristics of groups are reducible in principle to
individuals and their properties (including their relational properties).
12
I would define groups loosely, including anything from hunting-gathering bands of a few dozen people,
to state-level societies of thousands or millions of people, to perhaps even larger groups (such as, for
example, Europeans or Native Americans). I see no reason, in principle, why such group selection could
not take place simultaneously at several of these levels.
13
It is perhaps also worth pointing out that orthodox historical materialism, all other social theories with
which I am familiar, and even historians who regard themselves as unburdened by theory also implicitly
assume that cultural inheritance takes place largely within societies (or other social entities). If this did not
occur, societies would not have the relatively coherent histories they are usually depicted as having.
14
The classic source here is Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994). For popularisations of this work, see CavalliSorza and Cavalli-Sforza (1995) and Cavalli-Sforza (2000). Jared Diamond (1998) has used the work of
Cavalli-Sforza and his team in his superb Guns, Germs and Steel. For a review of Diamond, and an attempt
to relate his work to Darwinian historical materialisms, see Carling and Nolan (2000).
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evidence as suspect, tainted by some form of biological determinism, let me quote a
commentary on it by someone who I hope will reassure them a little. Discussing the work
of Cavalli-Sforza and his team, the late Stephen Jay Gould (1992, 39) said:
I find the linguistic [and genetic] correlations more exciting than anything else in
the work of Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues. Language is so volatile.
Conquerors can impose their language as well as their will. Tongues
interpenetrate and merge with an explosive ease not granted to genes or
morphology… One might have anticipated very little correlation between
language and the tree of human ancestry.
Yet the mapping of linguistic upon genetic tree is remarkable in its degree of
overlap. Exceptions exist, of course, and for the reasons mentioned above… The
correlations, however, are striking. Each genetic group also defines either a single
linguistic phylum or a few closely related phyla.
So how could this natural selection of cultural traits be used to underpin historical
materialism?
A Darwinian Historical Materialism
Some would perhaps regard the natural selection of cultural variation outlined above as a
theory of history in its own right. But it has nothing to say about how the elements within
human society might, in general, be analysed and related. It lacks a sociology, so to
speak. I think that historical materialism can provide that materialist sociology. So,
although I think that historical materialism needs a natural selection of cultural variation
in order to provide it with a robust, general mechanism, I also think that any natural
selection of cultural variation needs historical materialism as its materialist and historical
sociology.
So how can we combine the two theories? Remember that, in natural selection, there is a
tendency for behaviours to change towards those that enhance reproductive success.
Historical materialism, for its part, claims that there is a tendency for social phenomena
to change towards those that enhance productive power.15
Clearly, the crucial link that I need to make is between production and reproduction. I
must claim that variations in reproductive success are largely explained by variations in
production per producer, such that there is a strong correlation between those groups with
higher production and those groups with higher average reproductive success. Higher
levels of production per producer can best be achieved, other things being equal, by
higher levels of productivity per unit labour input. Given cultural inheritance within
reproductively discrete groups, higher levels of production and productivity (and the
productive techniques that bring them about) will tend to spread through human
15
Obviously I am formulating the two theories here in a way that emphasises a structural analogy between
them. For an exchange on this topic, see Levine and Sober (1985; Forthcoming) and Nolan (2002b;
Forthcoming).
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populations and the human species (in the direction, at the rate, and to the extent that the
environment allows). Insofar as social relationships (and other cultural traits) affect levels
of productivity and production (and therefore reproductive success), then they, too,
should change over successive generations to those that (given the existing nature of
productive power) better enhance productivity and production (and therefore
reproductive success). (Insofar as some cultural traits simply make use of existing levels
of productive power, then these should change to those that better utilise the existing
level of production to enhance reproductive success.)
It might be useful if I specify the explanatory structures that I am suggesting a little more
precisely (or merely a little differently), in order both to show the structural similarity
between them, and to show why productive power maintains its explanatory primacy
within this Darwinian historical materialism.16
Natural selection claims that those inherited variations that enhance reproductive success
will be the variations that are (naturally) selected, and will thus spread within the
population. The relationship of the organisms to their environment determines which of
the available variations will enhance reproductive success, and thus be selected. It
follows, therefore, that the relationship of the organisms to their environment explains
which variations will be (naturally) selected, and will therefore spread.
The philosopher of biology Peter Godfrey-Smith has said that the “genes are the channel
through which the environment speaks” (quoted in Dennett, 1996, 395), and this way of
outlining the explanatory structure of natural selection captures that idea well. The
natural selection of cultural traits outlined above has the same explanatory structure, but
substitutes cultural variations for genetic variations.
Historical materialism (more or less as presented by Cohen) claims that those social
relationships that enhance productive power will be the ones that are (rationally) selected
(because they enhance productive power). The existing level and kind of productive
power determines which social relationships will enhance productive power, and thus be
selected. Thus the nature of existing productive power explains which relationships will
be (rationally) selected and will therefore spread within human societies.
Darwinian historical materialism claims that those social relationships (and other cultural
variations) that enhance reproductive success will be the ones that are selected (through
differential reproductive success, which is what makes the theory Darwinian). But it is
the nature of productive power already available that determines which of the available
social relationships will enhance reproductive success, and thus spread within the
population.17 So, the nature of productive power already available explains which social
16
This way of formulating the explanatory structures is based upon the approach developed by Cohen
(1978, 160-3; 1983, 201-3; 1986, 219-22; 1988, 10-1; see also Cohen and Kymlicka, 1988, 83-4).
17
This involves treating the nature of the existing productive forces as an aspect of the place of the human
population within its environment, the aspect emphasised by Darwinian historical materialism that
distinguishes it from a natural selection of cultural traits. This seems to me to be entirely consistent with
how Cohen conceives productive forces (1978, 22-5, 96-8, 103-5, 248, 345-6).
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relationships (and other cultural variations) will spread (which is what makes the theory a
version of historical materialism).18
This way of formulating a Darwinian historical materialism reconciles differential
reproductive success as the mechanism of historical change with the explanatory primacy
of productive power.19 And it is because variations in reproductive success are largely
explained by variations in productive power that the nature of productive power available
determines which social relationships will most enhance reproductive success, either
because the relationships most enhance that productive power or because they better
utilise that productive power (and therefore most enhance reproductive success).
Evolutionary and Historical Tendencies
In 1930, R. A. Fisher, one of the founders of the Modern Synthesis, formulated what he
called “the fundamental theorem of Natural Selection” (Fisher, 1930, 35):
The rate of increase in fitness of any organism at any time is equal to its genetic
variance in fitness at that time.
As this implies, natural selection predicts that, in the absence of any forces other than
selection acting upon a population of organisms, the average level of reproductive
success of the members of that population will increase over evolutionary time (Levine
and Sober, 1985, 307-8, 309; Nolan 2002a, 77; or see my discussion of L and S). This is
because reproductively more successful traits replace reproductively less successful traits
in the population over successive generations. So members of later generations will
have, on average, more offspring than members of earlier generations. This will lead, not
simply to population growth (a constant rate of reproductive success could lead to that),
but to an increasing rate of population growth.
In reality, there are always countervailing forces acting upon a population. All
environments are finite, and they cannot indefinitely accommodate the increasing rate of
population growth that results from the tendency to increasing reproductive success.
Environmental limits will eventually, therefore, halt the realisation of the tendency.
Moreover, environments often change, either physically or biologically. Sometimes the
biological changes might be a result of the evolution of the relevant population,
sometimes they might be a result of other, competing populations undergoing selective
evolution. Whatever the cause, the population will have to “track” these changes, and
this could interfere with the tendency to increasing reproductive success. And, of course,
18
It seems to me that the account of the development of agriculture given by Jared Diamond (1998) comes
very close to exemplifying this explanatory structure.
19
Cohen (1988, 29) says that an emphasis upon the historical importance of military conflict poses a
problem for historical materialism. I suspect that the above way of formulating a Darwinian historical
materialism may, together with the observation that weapons need to be produced, allow us to reconcile a
selection of the more productive groups/societies through differential survival and reproduction due to
military conflict, with an explanatory primacy of productive power.
12
environments are differentially resourced, so some environments will enable the tendency
to be realized to a greater extent, or more quickly, than others.
The result of these countervailing forces is that reproductive success is unlikely to
increase for most species most of the time, and may well be constant, roughly equal to the
replacement level of the population, for much of the time. And, of course, when the
countervailing forces prove too powerful, reproductive success declines and the
population moves towards extinction.
If anything like a natural selection of cultural variations occurs among human
populations, then, proceeding by analogy with the natural selection of genetic variation,
we can also apply the prediction of increasing reproductive success, and therefore an
increasing rate of population growth, to human populations and the human species over
the long term.
There will also, of course, be the same countervailing forces as those encountered in the
genetic theory: finite and changing environments, which include competing species. But
perhaps our intellectual and cultural capacities have given the human species an
advantage that may have allowed us to at least temporarily overcome some of these
countervailing forces.
It is not hard to see that, as Fisher suggests, the more variation there is, then the faster the
selective process itself can be, and the faster the population can evolve. Because the raw
material for this process in human history is provided by cultural variation, and cultural
variation can be generated faster than genetic variation, this may increase the speed of
historical change in the human species compared to evolutionary change in other large,
long-lived species (to the extent that these are commensurable). This increased speed of
change may reduce the countervailing impact of environmental forces, as human
populations can adapt much more quickly to environmental change. The tendencies to
increasing fitness and an increasing rate of population growth are perhaps, therefore,
more likely to be realized within human populations and the human species than in
otherwise similar species. So a natural selection of cultural traits implies that, depending
upon environmental resources, history might, at least for a time, involve a trend of
increasing reproductive success and an increasing rate of population growth. And, indeed,
there does seem to be some evidence that this has occurred. Not only has world
population grown over the last 50,000 years or so, it has grown at an accelerating rate
(Harris and Ross, 1987, 21).20
The basic claim of historical materialism, that social phenomena change to those that will
enhance productive power, similarly implies a tendency (and, again, one that may or may
not be realized) for productive power to increase historically. Levine and Sober (1985,
307-7, 310-2) pointed out that the tendency to increasing fitness entailed by Fisher’s
theorem is analogous to the tendency to increasing productive power in historical
20
This has not, of course, been without many significant regional demographic fluctuations, and it has been
at the expense (sometimes to the point of extinction) of some human groups and of many other species.
13
materialism. But I think that the relationship between the two tendencies is deeper than a
mere analogy.
Given a natural selection of cultural variation, the postulated explanatory connection
between productive power and reproductive success would provide a Darwinian basis for
this historical materialist tendency. Insofar as higher levels of production (and therefore
productivity) enhance reproductive success, then differential reproductive success will
select, not only for increasing reproductive success, but also for increasing productive
power.21
It should be clear, then, what long term trends the theory that I have presented would
predict for human history: increasing reproductive success, and therefore an accelerating
rate of population growth; and increasing production per producer, and therefore
increasing productivity per unit labour input.22
Remember that these are very tentative predictions, in that they assume that
countervailing forces are absent, or at least not powerful enough to overwhelm the
postulated tendencies. This does not, therefore, preclude periods of more or less constant,
fluctuating, or even declining levels of population, productivity, production, or military
power. Nevertheless, these tendencies do seem to have been realized over the longterm.23 And, although all of these trends have accelerated over the last few centuries, as
capitalism has developed, they all occurred long before capitalism, and cannot be
associated with any particular social form. They seem to be due to fundamental
tendencies of human history.
Not only are these tendencies not inevitable, they are also not necessarily associated.
Increasing productivity, if it does occur, could lead to increasing levels of production per
producer or to increasing leisure per capita. History could go either way, but the theory
would predict a bias towards increasing production. Increasing production could lead to
increasing reproductive success, that is more babies, or to increasing consumption per
capita. Again, history could move in either direction, but the theory would predict a bias
towards increasing reproductive success rather than increasing consumption.
In Cohen’s account, the development thesis, the claim that there is a usually realized tendency for the
productive forces to develop through history, is a premiss of his argument for the explanatory primacy of
productive forces over production relations. My account establishes primacy by arguing that variations in
reproductive success are explained by variations in productive power, and then inferring productive
development on the basis of increasing reproductive fitness.
22
Other directional trends might also be predicted. For instance, if military competition has been an
important selective mechanism between groups, the groups with the greatest military power tending to outsurvive and out-reproduce other groups, then we would expect a tendency towards increasing military
power. That tendency has surely been realized. As Will Rogers once said, “We know that civilization
progresses, because every new war they invent a better way of killing you.”
23
However, as a corollary of Fisher’s theorem, larger populations can generate more variation, and this
may increase the rate at which larger populations can develop their productivity and production, and
enhance their reproductive success, other things being equal. See Diamond’s (1998b) discussion of
differences in the rate of productive development in Eurasia, the Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa and
Australia.
21
14
Orthodox historical materialism claims, not only that productive development can be
predicted, given the right circumstances, but also that, if productive development occurs,
a particular kind of social development can also be predicted. Now, it is surely obvious
that the truth of historical materialism’s fundamental claims does not depend upon the
truth of this further claim. Whether it is true depends upon how significant similarities in
social form due to similarities in levels of productive power are, compared to differences
in social forms due to differences in kinds of productive techniques.
Nevertheless, I think that this claim is defensible. It is standard among cultural
anthropologists and archaeologists to see a relatively common pattern of social
development: from more or less egalitarian bands and tribes to incipiently stratified
chiefdoms to fully stratified states (Diamond, 1998, 265-281; Harris, 1993, 289-324).24 It
is not difficult to match these to Cohen's (1978, 197-9) social "epochs." Bands and tribes
are pre-class societies; chiefdoms are probably best regarded as transitional between preclass and class societies; and states are class societies.
Orthodox historical materialism makes the further claim that major historical changes are
brought about by class struggle (Cohen, 1978, 292-3; 1988, 14-20). At least, historical
materialism makes this claim if we do not trivialise the sentence that begins the first
section of the Communist Manifesto: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles” (Marx and Engels, 1968, 35). I think, however, that it would be
truer to say that the history of all hitherto existing populations has been a history of
competition (direct or indirect) and conflict between culturally distinct and reproductively
discrete groups.25
It is possible that these competing groups could sometimes be classes within a society,
with distinct, if linked, modes of production, endogenous reproduction and within-class
cultural transmission (perhaps as the bourgeoisie developed within the interstices of prebourgeois society). Another possible role of class struggle lies in generating the variation
that selection subsequently acts upon, increasing or reducing the competitive advantage
of one society vis-a-vis other societies (Carling, 1993). This would retain a role for class
struggle in the origin of new economic structures, but their subsequent history would be
explained in a Darwinian manner. It seems to me highly likely, though, that a Darwinian
historical materialism would make a much reduced (or very different) claim for the role
of class struggle in human history than does orthodox historical materialism.26
Though I regard the Darwinian “elaboration” presented above as the fundamental
mechanism of historical materialism, I do not regard it as the only possible mechanism.
Although we need to avoid the error of postulating several “uncoordinated” reasons for
productive development and changes of economic structure, I think that we also need to
Harris, in common with many anthropologists, does not use the term “tribe,” preferring instead terms
such as “village societies.”
25
Engels (Marx and Engels, 1968, 35-6) later reduced the scope of the original claim to written history
rather than pre-history. I do not restrict the scope of my claim in this way.
26
Reducing the historical significance of class struggle does not, of course, reduce the sociological (or
moral) significance of class division, nor does it entail that class struggles will play little or no part in any
future social changes.
24
15
develop an historical conception of historical materialism’s mechanisms.27 How did
mechanisms of change involving differential social reproduction emerge from and, to
some degree, supersede the mechanism of differential biological reproduction? To what
extent can we realistically, and consistently, attribute an increasing role to rational choice
as a mechanism?
Conclusion
Lack of space prevents me from giving these arguments the elaboration and qualifications
that they need. However, I think that I have said enough to give a sense of the conception
of history that I am trying to develop.
Historical materialists have traditionally detected trends and patterns in human history.
More conservative historians, in seeming contrast, have often seen history as, in the
words of Gibbon (1972, 4), “little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and
misfortunes of mankind.” And Cohen’s rational-choice account of historical materialism
does indeed seem to embody a view of history that is incompatible with that expressed in
Gibbon’s statement. But I think that historical materialism’s emphasis upon trends and
patterns and Gibbon’s view both embody part of the truth about human history, though
they involve a different focus. Any relatively small portion of human history, examined
closely, can seem like a record of “crimes, follies, and misfortunes.” If we look at the
overall course of human history, however, long-term trends and large-scale patterns are
discernible. But this raises the obvious question of how the short-term crimes, follies, and
misfortunes can result in the long-term trends? The only thing that could answer this
question, I think, is a selection mechanism that could filter out the less adaptive
behaviours and preserve the more adaptive. Just as natural selection can produce longterm trends out of random short-term variations, I think that the Darwinian version of
historical materialism that I have outlined here and elsewhere provides that historical
mechanism.
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27
One reason why we need to do this is that the demographic transition has fundamentally (although very
recently and only for some societies) altered the connection between productive power and reproductive
success that has (I would claim) prevailed for most of human history. This would seem to preclude the use
of the Darwinian mechanism for these societies.
16
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