You may have heard this line of reasoning used against anarchists from people who are mired into the mainstream capitalist doctrine. Greed will always be with us, so the argument goes, therefore establishing a society that goes against greed is utopian. People will always want to compete and accumulate power. Any attempt at an egalitarian society is doomed to failure.
In fact, this argument is so widespread that it has led the libcoms to reject any concept of human nature outright, preferring to dump the theory of evolution and its powerful ramifications rather than even leave open the possibility that greed is natural.
But rejecting human nature altogether is not a viable answer. It demands that we follow magical thinking: that man’s personality and character somehow magically spring from his upbringing, without any mediation of the brain. Libcoms will counter this by saying that they really do believe in biological needs, instincts, and other evolutionary traits, but that they don’t believe in man’s nature being innate anyway.
This is why it is important to define exactly what we mean by “human nature.” We are not talking about people’s tastes in clothes or their choice of a job. We are talking about nothing less than that which is fundamental to being human, that which is always at the core of everything we do, starting with our basic drives (nourishment, sexuality, security, play, etc), our biological needs and our cognitive biases. While we humans express these drives in all sorts of complex ways, they exist in most social species.
There is nothing that can compel an individual to do anything without the need, drive or bias already being present within himself. This is why human nature is so important and why people seek to understand it. It’s what advertisers, movie editors and politicians’ speech writers use to “press our buttons.” Anyone who rejects the notion makes himself vulnerable to such manipulations, and they are everywhere.
At any rate, the idea of rejecting the concept of human nature itself because of misunderstandings or misrepresentations is as silly as rejecting the concept of atoms because some people (especially Christian presuppositionalists) misrepresent it. It is obviously not true that man is infinitely malleable. All throughout history, we return to the same concepts, the same drives, the same conflicts, no matter how much our societies change. The study of these constants must be part of the education of any serious student of politics.
What about greed? Greed is the desire to have more than one’s equal share, to be more than associates of each other. Greed is ultimately the desire for domination. It is therefore very much related to my previous entry on atomistic individualism, as a greedy person (within his pursuit, anyway) sees others as means to an end, not as fellow human beings.
I think this is the crux of the misconception. Capitalists believe greed is natural because they believe it is individualist. Communists cannot object because they already agree with this premise. But there’s nothing individualist about greed. Greed is the natural result of people seeking security and material possessions in a system which indoctrinates them to do so and makes the competition of all against all the precondition to that security and those material possessions. The current system is full of games conditions. The faster we eliminate them, the faster sanity will be restored to society.
Some libcoms, on the other hand, propose that greed should be seen in its entirety, as the struggle for a richer life, and that the pursuit of material wealth is only one small part of it. In that perspective, greed is not only good, but vitally necessary for the accomplishment of communist aims.
We have no doubt that people are corruptible, but we know for ourselves that there are things more tempting, more seductive, than money, capital, and Power – so much so that no genuinely greedy human being could possibly resist their allure – and it is upon this corruptibility of man that we found our hopes for revolution. Revolution is nothing other than the self-accelerating spread throughout society of this more profound corruption, of this deeper seduction. Currently, greed is always pursued and associated with isolation and privatism simply because everyone under the reign of capital is condemned to pursue greed in this narrow way. Greed doesn’t yet know its own potentiality.
We say once again: the present forms of greed lose out in the end because they turn out to be not greedy enough.
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Oi! Not all (or even most) LibComs reject Scientific theories of Evolution or evolutionary psychology and I do not think most reject the concept of human nature altogether. What I say and what I’ve seen others point out is that human nature is not something that requires greed. Rather “human nature” is basically the capacity to be molded and adapt to one’s environment and to be reasonable most of the time.
*shrugs* That’s not the impression I got from talking to people on blackened.net. As for the fact that human nature does not require greed, we obviously both agree on that.
Well blackenet.net is more of a mutualist haven. Have you tried LibCom.org?
You must have a strange definition of “haven.” If blackened.net is a haven compared to libcom.org, I’d rather stay away from libcom.org!
“the desire to have more than one’s equal share, to be more than associates of each other.”
I don’t accept your second definition. However I would certainly agree that the the first definition of greed is part of human nature.
People seek their own advantage and if they have a greater share of wealth they have greater chance for reproductive success and greater ability to fulfill their desires.
Not to mention that people do respond positively to chances to acquire more than others, in other words to compete..
Sorry to say, your last statement is incorrect from the scientific standpoint. The overwhelming agreement between studies is that people do not respond as well to competition as to other modes of interaction (cooperation, and individual work). So that is plain incorrect. Your argument seems to hinge on this, so it is invalid. As for “reproductive success,” this would of course only apply to people who pursue reproductive success, so I fail to see your point.
““human nature” is basically the capacity to be molded and adapt to one’s environment and to be reasonable most of the time.”
That’s not what evolutionary psychology says at all. EvoPsych says that, like the border collie puppy who headbuts children in an attempt to herd them, we are born with a set of instincts and desires shaped by natural selection. We seek to mate, we seeks to get the food before the other male. We want other people to think highly of us so we can gain status in the tribe. Men sleep around and women marry supportive men but are more attracted to bold men. etc, etc, etc, etc.
We ARE animals and thus we have built in behaviors like other animals. Monkeys don’t fight over mates and food because of capitalism or patriarchy, they do it because it’s hard-wired into them.
Very interesting read my friend. I throughouly enjoyed it.
I was wondering where you got all this information from though
have you any links to theorists or studies?
On what topic? Pretty much everything I wrote in this entry was a generality.
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We are not the standard animal, we are following the same rules however. Because of this we are sad. Greed only exists when we allow ourselves to be covered in lies and ignorance, not understanding our nature, we assume the rules of animals but are saddened by the results. We have a nature and are able to do anything with it, as it exists only in our minds.
Interesting article. A poem about Greed: http://www.hardwrit.com/greedom