Friday Night Disco - (Are You Ready) Do The Bus Stop - The Fatback Band

 

Anti-Duhring, Part 1, Philosophy, Chapter VII – Natural Philosophy. The Organic World - Part 4 of 7

Engels notes the work of Haeckel,

“and the variation of species conceived as a result of the mutual interaction of adaptation and heredity, with adaptation being represented as the variation-producing factor and heredity as the preserving factor in the process.” (p 88)

Duhring is again offended by the use of a term, here, adaptation, rather than the actual content of the process described.

“Once again it is the name which makes Herr Dühring angry. But whatever name he may give the process, the question here is whether variations in the species of organisms are produced through such processes or not. And again Herr Dühring gives no answer.” (p 88-9)

Duhring does not understand the process as being one in which these individuals of a species that have inherited certain advantageous characteristics thrive, and pass on those characteristics, but one in which certain individuals, as some kind of conscious act of will, adapt themselves to those conditions.

Plants that developed toxins that deterred other creatures from eating them, did not do so as some kind of conscious act of will, and it is not that any individual plant within the species, overnight, does so. Some individual plants would have had characteristics that made them less attractive to potential predators, and one of those characteristics would have been a chemical make-up that was toxic to those predators.

The individuals within the species that had these characteristics would survive and pass on those characteristics that become enhanced, and become a part of the general characteristics of the species, or cause it to evolve into a new species. Often this toxic characteristic goes along with a red colouration and other creatures learn that this colouration implies toxicity and avoid it. But, other plants and other creatures that may not have developed this toxicity as a defence benefit from the fact that other creatures avoid eating anything red. So, those individuals that have a red or reddish colouration, survive and pass on these characteristics in their genes.

Back To Part 3

Anti-Duhring, Part 1, Philosophy, Chapter VII – Natural Philosophy. The Organic World - Part 3 of 7

Following his return to England, Darwin did, indeed, study plant and animal breeding, because he saw in it the same processes of variation and development he had witnessed in his analysis of species on his travels. Yet, those variations had arisen without such conscious intervention, and Darwin sought, in his study, of plant and animal breeding to identify what those processes were, and how Nature might itself have brought them about.

The process has two components – variation and heredity. We now know, as a result of the science of genetics, that the characteristics of all organisms are determined by their genes, and these genes are inherited from their parents. Large numbers of new organisms come into existence and they all differ one from another, because they all have a different sequencing of their genes, as we now further understand as a result of the decoding of these genomes, which computer technology made possible, 20 years ago.

As a result of these minor differences in the genes, of any given species, they will have different characteristics. Depending upon the material conditions, in which the given species exists, some characteristics will be more beneficial than others. A plant whose characteristics mean that it tends to be even slightly taller than others may poke its head higher, obtain more sunlight and grow stronger. It will be more likely to survive, and so will pass on its characteristics to the plants that grow from its seed. The plant, of course, did not consciously grow taller to achieve that advantage, it was simply better adapted to those conditions. In other conditions it might have been a disadvantage.

“However great Darwin's blunder in accepting the Malthusian theory so naively and uncritically, anyone can see at the first glance that no Malthusian spectacles are required to perceive the struggle for existence in nature — the contradiction between the countless host of embryonic germs nature so lavishly produces and the small number of those which can ever reach maturity, a contradiction which in fact finds its solution for the most part in a struggle for existence — often of extreme cruelty.” (p 86)

Yet, Duhring could not see any possibility of a struggle for existence amongst unconscious plants or plant eaters, restricting it only to “the brutes”, and, having done so, then, moralistically, rails at the brutality of this process. He accuses Darwin of producing “its transformations and differences out of nothing” (p 87) But, this is not true, as set out above. The transformations occur as a result of the inheritance of advantageous characteristics.

“It is true that, when considering natural selection, Darwin leaves out of account the causes which have produced the variations in separate individuals, and deals in the first place with the way in which such individual deviations gradually become the characteristics of a race, variety or species. To Darwin it was of less immediate importance to discover these causes — which up to the present are in part completely unknown, and in part can only be stated in quite general terms — than to find a rational form in which their effects become fixed, acquire permanent significance.” (p 87-8)

But, we do know, now, the causes of these variations, which reside in the genetic make-up of the different individuals of a given species. We also know that other causes play a part, such as arising from mutation, as well as, more recently, becoming aware of the role of epigenetics in the way that certain genes within the genome of an individual may be turned on or off.

“It is true that in doing this Darwin attributed to his discovery too wide a field of action, made it the sole agent in the alteration of species and neglected the causes of the repeated individual variations, for the form in which these variations become general; but this is the kind of mistake which he shares with most other people who make any real advance.” (p 88)

This is quite correct, as not only does mutation play a role, but, also, there is the role of mass extinctions, which, for example, wiped out the dinosaurs, except for the birds, and which suddenly created conditions where other species may prosper.

Back To Part 2

Forward To Part 4

Anti-Duhring, Part 1, Philosophy, Chapter VII – Natural Philosophy. The Organic World - Part 2 of 7

As Marx set out, basing himself on the work of Scottish farmer and agronomist, James Anderson, in fact, the land continued to be able to not only feed the growing population, but to increase output much faster than such population growth. The means of doing that was the application of capital and technology. For all the claims about finite natural resources running out, of peak oil, and so on, which have been repeated ad nauseam, since at least as far back as the 1970's, the predicted exhaustion has repeatedly failed to materialise at the due date, as reliably as the similar failure of the predicted End of Days.

Ricardo, basing himself on Malthus population theory, used it as the basis of his theory of the falling rate of profit. As the land could not keep up with population, Ricardo said, food and other agricultural prices would rise. Higher food prices would cause wages to rise and so profits to fall, hence the falling rate of profit. Again, as Marx set out, because the premise of rising food prices was wrong, the conclusion was also wrong.

Malthus, like modern Malthusians and catastrophists, refused to accept that capitalism, driven by competition, and the search for profit, is always led to seek to raise productivity by utilising science and technology, and to remove obstacles such as shortages or resources and labour by such means. Darwin, in applying his theory to all of Nature, including Man, makes a similar mistake, because he fails to take into account that, unlike other animals, Man is not just a consumer, but also a producer. Man does not simply consume from a fixed stock provided by Nature, but engages with Nature in expanding the stock, and by using technology, and accumulating and developing its means of production does so with ever greater facility. Indeed, it is this drive to raise productivity, based on The Law of Value, that drives forward the evolution of human social organisms.

Duhring, by contrast, claims that Darwin's theory, rather than applying to all of Nature, only applies to “the realm of the brutes to the extent that they get their food by devouring their prey.” (p 87) On this basis, Darwin's theory is reduced to a crude “survival of the fittest” which, unfortunately, Darwin himself lent credence to, in his later years, providing material for the eugenicists and social-Darwinists, whose ideas were, in turn, used by ethno-nationalists as the foundation of the ideas, for example, of the Nazis, Zionists, White Nationalists etc., to justify the creation of exclusivist, ethnically pure nation states.

As Engels sets out, however, Darwin never excluded from his theory the whole of Nature. The idea that it deals only with predator and prey is false, a construction of Duhring. Duhring accuses Darwin of being captive to the ideas of the animal breeder, the same ideas that, also, formed the basis of Eugenics. From this, of course, flows Duhring's conception of nature bringing about these changes by conscious will. The plant and animal breeder brings about changes in the given species by deliberately promoting certain desired characteristics to arrive at a specific end.

Back To Part 1

Forward To Part 3

Anti-Duhring, Part 1, Philosophy, Chapter VII – Natural Philosophy. The Organic World - Part 1 of 7

Part 1, Philosophy, Chapter VII – Natural Philosophy. The Organic World

Duhring adopts the same concept of “intermediate steps”, of a causal chain when it comes to explaining the development of organic matter.

“A single and uniform ladder of intermediate steps leads from the mechanics of pressure and impact to the linking together of sensations and ideas” (p 82)

So, once again, Duhring works backwards through the causal chain, but, by this method can never arrive at an initial cause. It is the same story of movement arising out of immobility. Moreover, the method is teleological, and leads Duhring to imbue Nature itself with a conscious will.

As with his approach to all previous science and scientists, Duhring has only scorn for Darwin.

Duhring says that nature,

““is obliged incessantly to re-establish order in the world of objects” and in doing so she has to settle more than one matter “which requires more subtlety on nature's part than is usually credited to her” . But nature not only knows why she does one thing or another; she not only has to perform the duties of a housemaid, she not only possesses subtlety, in itself a pretty good accomplishment in subjective conscious thought; she also has a will. For what the instincts do in addition, incidentally fulfilling real natural functions such as nutrition propagation, etc., “we should regard not as directly but only as indirectly willed”. (p 83-4)

As for Darwin, Duhring criticises him for taking Malthusian population theory and applying it to natural science. Marx and Engels had dealt with this connection between Darwinism and Malthusianism themselves. Both were scathing of Malthus and his population theory, which itself fell into disrepute, as its prognostications were quickly shown to be false, and based on no factual evidence. As with all such ideas, it continued to have adherents, and was resurrected in the latter half of the 20th century, along with its Sismondist predecessor, as large sections of the petty-bourgeois Left collapsed into moral socialism, environmentalism, and catastrophism, in proportion to the decline of their own relevance and connection to the working class.

Marx noted in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 9, that the catastrophism of Sismondi was only correct in so far that he recognised the potential for crises of overproduction of commodities, in a way that Mill, Say and Ricardo did not. But, as Marx, and later Lenin, note, Sismondi's conclusion from that was reactionary, as against the revolutionary optimism of Ricardo. Malthus plagiarised Sismondi's ideas, in relation to overproduction of commodities, and used it to his advantage as representative of the interests of the landed aristocracy. To avoid overproduction, he said, raise the revenues of the landlords and the state (rent and taxes), so that capitalists have less profit to accumulate productively, and the unproductive classes have greater revenues to consume unproductively.

The same idea was presented a century later by Keynes. According to Malthus, without such action, the capitalists would continue to accumulate capital and to employ labour. The labouring population would then grow and grow, whilst the ability of the land to produce food to sustain them would not keep up, leading to catastrophe. All these same ideas are put forward by environmentalists and modern-day Malthusians and catastrophists. But, it was nonsense, then, and is nonsense now.

Back To VI - Natural Philosophy. Cosmogony, Physics, Chemistry

Forward To Part 2

Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy, VI – Natural Philosophy. Cosmogony, Physics, Chemistry - Part 6 of 6

When Duhring passes on to chemistry, the same approach is seen of taking well known axioms and theories and simply putting his own brand on them, simply changing the wording here and there, to the definitions and categories.

“Herr Dühring passes on to chemistry, and takes the opportunity to reveal to us nature's three laws of inertia which have so far been discovered by his philosophy of reality, viz.:

“(1) the quantity of matter in general, (2) that of the simple (chemical) elements, and (3) that of mechanical energy are constant”

Hence: the uncreatability and indestructibility of matter, and of its simple component parts, in so far as it has them, as well as of motion — these old facts known the world over and expressed here most inadequately — this is the only positive thing Herr Dühring can provide us with as a result of his natural philosophy of the inorganic world. We knew all this long ago. But what we did not know was that they were “laws of inertia” and as such “schematic properties of the system of things”.” (p 81)

Fronm this, Duhring concludes,

“The amount of gold on hand in the universe must at all times have been the same, and it can have increased or diminished just as little as matter in general” (p 81)

Except we know that this is wrong in a way that Engels, also, could not have proved, at the time. Gold is one of those elements that is only created as stars die, and explode. Initially, therefore, there was no gold, in the universe, and the quantity of it increases as stars die and produce these elements in the process.

Back To Part 5

Forward To VII - The Organic World

Michael Roberts Fundamental Errors, VI – Inflation and Roberts' Confusion of Money With Money Tokens, and New Value With Total Value - Part 7 of 7

As I have set out elsewhere, and Mandel also details in “The Second Slump”, in the post war, long wave uptrend, state intervention, and use of additional liquidity to finance it, did cut short a series of recessions, but that was during a period of long wave uptrend. When that uptrend ceased in the 1970's, the use of the same state intervention, funded by additional liquidity, simply led to stagflation. I have also set out, elsewhere, why, if the aim is really to curtail inflation, the use of central bank interest rate hikes is the wrong tool. To reduce inflation, what is required is not higher interest rates, but a reduction in excess liquidity, i.e. in place of the QE that continually increased that liquidity, a period of QT. QE does not reduce real interest rates, because it does not increase the amount of money or money capital in the economy. It simply puts more money tokens into circulation, and so results in inflation. By inflating the prices of the commodities that comprise constant and variable-capital, it correspondingly increases the amount of money-capital demanded.

As Marx puts it,

“Massie laid down more categorically than did Hume, that interest is merely a part of profit. Hume is mainly concerned to show that the value of money makes no difference to the rate of interest, since, given the proportion between interest and money-capital—6 per cent for example, that is, £6, rises or falls in value at the same time as the value of the £100 (and. therefore, of one pound sterling) rises or falls, but the proportion 6 is not affected by this.”

(Theories of Surplus Value, Part I, Addenda)

It also, means that lenders seek higher nominal rates of interest, particularly on their longer-term loans, in order to compensate for the depreciation of their capital, resulting from inflation.

Roberts, theory failed to anticipate the large rise in inflation arising from the huge increase in liquidity pumped into households, during the period of lockdowns, just as his theory led him to predict a “Post-Covid Slump”, as against the huge rise in economic activity that actually occurred. He continues to see economic policy as being undertaken on the basis of a technical operation for the more efficient running of the economy, which he sees as being to promote growth, whereas the reality is, understood by Marxists, that economic policy is undertaken to ensure the interests of the ruling-class, which, at any time, may or may not involve the promotion of economic growth.

In the period since the 1980's, the interests of the ruling class have increasingly involved the protection of their form of property – fictitious-capital – from asset price crashes. The use of monetary policy, in particular QE, was one element of that, driving liquidity out of the real economy, and into these paper and property assets, and their derivatives, inflating their prices. The other element of it, since 2010, has been the use of fiscal austerity, to slow economic growth, and so reduce the upward pressure on interest rates, so as to prevent further crashes in those asset prices.

As I have set out in numerous places, those attempts will ultimately fail, as the underlying dynamic of the long wave cycle, and the laws of capital impose themselves.

Back To Part 6