Charles Darwin finally published The Origin of Species less than a ten-year period after Karl Marx’s philosophical work The German Ideology : Part I. These two works could be intrinsically linked through Marx’s moral history of the world. Can it be that a political thesis, written in a different part of the world, was influenced by such material? Absolutely. It is not difficult to discern Marxist influences in Darwin’s groundbreaking discovery of evolution.
Marx tries to correct German historical perceptions in The German Ideology, Part I. He asserts that the Germans, unlike their British and French counterparts, who he feels have at least glimpsed his truth, refuse to accept materialism as driving force in history. Marx says that the right way to interpret human history is through what he refers to as historical materialism. What he sees as German idealism?intellectual separation from such materialistic grounding?he condemns for failing to grasp the underlying power of forces of production and people’s relation to those forces of production as the determining might of the structure of society. Marx describes the idealist study of human society. Marx’s problem is the separation of idealist ideas from empirically realistic conditions and their treatment as the apriori determining forces for social structure. Marx believes this particular problem is a German one.
Marx offers an alternative solution. He suggests that Germans view history with a materialist viewpoint to realize that conflicts in the past that led to significant social change are a result of the inconsistency of the structure of the forces of the production and the relationships that people in a society have because of these forces. Marx explains further that private ownership is the type of property that comes from another person’s labour, and that an individual controls for purposes of accumulation. Marx argues that the division between laborers and their employers leads to private property. This is because the division creates a conflict of interest. Marx then concludes the contradiction between division of labor and private property was the first step in human history which led to alienation from one’s own labor products, as well as from nature and fellow men.
Darwin’s thesis will not be surprising once the reader can think outside of the “Creationism,” which, at the moment Darwin was writing it, was a powerful religious doctrine that was well-indoctrinated and extremely influential. First, he states that all animals strive to reproduce. Second, he says that they are all competing for the same limited resources. Darwin’s fundamental principle, however, is that every organism struggles for its life. The struggle for life is the core principle behind Darwin’s theory.
The high rate of growth of organic life leads to a struggle for survival. The high rate at which organic beings tend to increase leads to an overpopulation of organisms. The struggle to survive is the main goal.
Both works are surprisingly similar. Marx immediately distinguishes between man and animal. He argues that humans “begin to separate themselves from other animals when they produce their means of survival, a move which is determined by their physical organisation” (Marx 150). It may appear that this immediately disassociates Darwin’s theory on evolution. However, it only clarifies its similarity. Man, like the Galapagos creatures Darwin studied, is fighting for his life in a way different than the Galapagos. While animals hunt or forage to survive, the human being creates. Marx makes a further important point: “This production is only possible with a growing population.” (Marx, p. 150). Darwin’s theories are also valid. If there is not competition for resources among individuals from different species, progress and evolution will be impossible. Darwin’s theory focuses on animal competition against rival species. Marx, however, focuses only on man’s struggle against himself.
The two men’s basic ideas were strikingly alike. Both men saw life as an ongoing struggle against others in a particular community or region. Both believed that the ability of an individual to survive, to reproduce, is what advances history. In Darwin’s case this was because these changes morphed into the physical characteristics of an entire species. Darwin’s Origin of Species, despite its differences in acceptance and appeal, shares many of the same ideas as Marx’s German Ideology Part I.