Page:Anton Pannekoek - Marxism and Darwinism - tr. Nathan Weiser (1912).pdf/31

Rh bring about an ever growing mental and physical deterioration."

These are the main contentions of those who use Darwinism as a defence of the bourgeois system. Strong as these arguments might appear at first sight, they were not hard for the Socialists to overcome. To a large extent, they are the old arguments used against Socialism, but wearing the new garb of Darwinistic terminology, and they show an utter ignorance of Socialism as well as of capitalism.

Those who compare the social organism with the animal body leave unconsidered the fact that men do not differ like various cells or organs, but only in degree of their capacity. In society the division of labor cannot go so far that all capacities should perish at the expense of one. What is more, everyone who understands something of Socialism knows that the efficient division of labor does not cease with Socialism; that first under Socialism real divisions will be possible. The difference between the workers, their ability, and employments will not cease; all that will cease is the difference between workers and exploiters.

While it is positively true that in the struggle for existence those animals that are strong, healthy and well survive, yet this does not happen under capitalist competition. Here victory does not depend upon perfection of those engaged in the struggle, but in something that lies outside of their body. While this struggle may hold good with the small bourgeois, where success depends upon personal abilities and qualifications, yet with the further development of capital, success does not depend upon personal abilities, but upon the possession of capital. The one who has a larger capital at command will soon conquer the