Page:Anton Pannekoek - Marxism and Darwinism - tr. Nathan Weiser (1912).pdf/56

Rh Every one had to rely upon himself. Alone, free from all ties and protection, he must struggle against all.

It is for this reason that, under capitalism, the human world resembles mostly the world of rapacious animals, and it is for this very reason that the bourgeois Darwinists looked for men's prototype among animals living isolated. To this they were led by their own experience. Their mistake, however, consisted in considering capitalist conditions as everlasting. The relation existing between our capitalist competitive system and animals living isolated, was thus expressed by Engels in his book, "Anti-Dühring" (page 293). This may also be found on page 59 of "Socialism, Utopian and Scientific" as follows:

"Finally, modern industry and the opening of the world market made the struggle universal and at the same time gave it unheard-of virulence. Advantages in natural or artificial conditions of production now decide the existence or non-existence of individual capitalists as well as of whole industries and countries. He that falls is remorselessly cast aside. It is the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence transferred from Nature to society with intensified violence. The conditions of existence natural to the animal appear as the final term of human development."

What is that which carries on the struggle in this capitalist competition, the perfectness of which decides the victory?

First come technical tools, machines. Here again applies the law that struggle leads to perfection. The machine that is more improved outstrips the less improved, the machines that cannot perform much, and the simple tools are exterminated and machine