“Darwin saw every reason to predict that this evolution of human cooperation would, after the nineteenth century, continue to even higher levels. “Looking to future generations,” he predicted in the Descent of Man, “there is no cause to fear that the social instincts will grow weaker, and we may expect that virtuous habits will grow stronger, becoming perhaps fixed by inheritance. In this case the struggle between our higher and lower impulses will be less severe, and virtue will be triumphant”” (Darwin 1882, 125).

The above passage comes from the book Evolution, Games and God edited by M. Nowak and S. Coakley.

I am really enjoying this book so far. It fits very well with a lot of what I’ve been thinking about. The cooperation thing, in particular, hits on one major problem with our economic system, Capitalism: it’s heavily based on competition. This usually means that there is always going to be a winner and a loser, rich people and poor people, unfortunately. Now I don’t think anyone would say competition is completely bad, the problem is when one of the indestructible polarities is emphasized too much over the other one, e.g. competition over cooperation.

I think Darwin is on to something, though. Our social instincts will continue to evolve and grow stronger. Lets hope so, anyway.

Tags:capitalismcompetitioncooperationdarwinevolutionNowaksarah coakleysocialism