34 MARXISM AND DARWINISM. 



some Socialists who desired to prove that, according 

 to Darwin, the Socialist system is the natural one. 

 Said these Socialists, "Under capitalism men do not 

 carry on the struggle for existence with like tools, 

 but with unlike ones artificially made. The natural 

 superiority of those that are healthier, stronger, more 

 intelligent or morally better, is of no avail so long as 

 birth, class, or the possession of money control this 

 struggle. Socialism, in abolishing all these artificial 

 dissimilarities, will make equal provisions for all, and 

 then only will the struggle for existence prevail, 

 wherein the real personal superiorities will be the de- 

 ciding factors." 



These critical arguments, while they are not bad 

 when used as refutations against bourgeois Darwin- 

 ists, are still faulty. Both sets of arguments, those 

 used by the bourgeois Darwinists in favor of capital- 

 ism, and those of the Socialists, who base their Social- 

 ism on Darwin, are falsely rooted. Both arguments, 

 although reaching opposite conclusions, are equally 

 false because they proceed from the wrong premises 

 that there is a natural and a permanent system of 

 society. 



Marxism has taught us that there is no such thing 

 as a natural and a permanent social system, and that 

 there can be none, or, to put it another way, every 

 social system is natural, for every social system is 

 necessary and natural under given conditions. There 

 is not a single definite social system that can be ac- 

 cepted as natural ; the various social systems take the 

 place of one another as a result of developments in 

 the means of production. Each system is therefore the 

 natural one for its particular time. Capitalism is not 

 the only natural order, as the bourgeoisie believes, and 



