A Summary of Natural Selection's Paradox

To many a respected analysts,

I have long admired your analysis of the economy and the culture. I have analyzed the forces behind what you have observed. Any discussion of the economy or culture must start with natural selection. The genes are God in the sense that they define the limits of our ability to adapt. If these limits did not exist, we might reasonably have less concern about global warming.

What Darwin did not analyze is as important as what he did tell us. Natural selection does not distinguish between short-term and long-term adaptations in the short term. It is a neutral algorithm. If the short-term adaptation uses up the resources necessary for long-term survival, the species faces extinction. Most, if not all, of our troubles stem from short-term adaptations. Corporate balance sheets only look at the next three months. A sustainable morality can only stand on the search for long-term adaptations. Survival of the species provides the moral imperative for judging adaptations.

The other point not addressed by Darwin is the dichotomy in adaptations for the acquisition of the energy individuals must have to survive or rise to prominence. One employs synergetic divisions of labor based on merit, where all share in the result and the other appropriates the labor of others. The fight for freedom has always been a class struggle, class being the most effective way of enforcing relative slavery. The modern version of slavery employs, as outlined by Community Action’s Porter, a system of keeping a labor force so intimidated that it will do the bidding of an elite for little or nothing. A large part of the workforce is employed, in Samuel Bowles term, as “Guard labor” to keep the poor from appropriating from the rich.

The environment suffers from the same mentality. Capitalism is the business of turning real wealth into paper wealth as fast as possible, usually at the expense of the future generations. There is a great deal of mythology and history involved in this evolution. I think you could use what I have to say in my book, Natural Selection’s Paradox; The Outlaw Gene, the Religion of Money, and the Origin of Evil. It is available on Amazon. Keep hunting.