Topic > The Influence of Marxism on Darwin's Origin of Species

Less than a decade after Karl Marx completed his philosophical work, The German Ideology: Part I, Charles Darwin was finally persuaded to publish his biological masterpiece , The origin of species. Could these two works be intrinsically linked by Marx's moral description of history? Is it possible that material so politically charged could have influenced a scientific thesis written on the other side of the world? Absolutely. When you look closely at the moral underpinnings of Darwin's revolutionary discovery of evolution, it is easy to see the Marxist inspiration. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayMarx attempts in The German Ideology: Part I to reorient the German perception of history, or at least to point out its flaws. He argues that, unlike the English and French, who he believes have at least a glimmer of his truth, the Germans naively refuse to accept materialism as the driving force of their history. Marx writes that what he calls historical materialism is the correct way to analyze the course of human history. What he sees as German idealism – intellectual separation from that materialistic basis – he condemns for failing to grasp the underlying power of the forces of production and the relationship of people to those forces of production as the determining power of the structure of society. He goes on to describe the idealist tradition in the study of human history; the problem that Marx sees is that idealistic notions are estranged from the empirical and realistic conditions of history and treated as a priori determining forces of social structure. Again, to Marx this problem seems to be particularly acute in Germany. Marx offers a solution, however. He argues that Germans should view history from a materialist perspective to understand that all notable conflicts that have led to social change can be interpreted as arising from the inconsistency with which the forces of production are structured in any society and from people's social relations in that company. they have because of those forces of production. Marx goes on to explain that private property represents that particular type of property that has been extracted by the labor of another but is controlled by a certain individual for the purpose of accumulation. Therefore the division of labor generates private property; for Marx, the fundamental contradiction within the division of labor is that it naturally leads to the opposition of the interests held by the specific individuals who work and the community organism for which those individuals work. Marx finally takes the next step and concludes that this – the contradiction between the division of labor and the concept of private property – was the nascent step taken in the course of human history that led to man's alienation from his own products of work, and ultimately also from work itself, from its own nature and from its peers. Once the reader is able to think outside of the religious dogma regarding "Creationism" which, at the time Darwin was writing, was extremely powerful and incredibly well indoctrinated, Darwin's thought thesis is not too surprising. He starts from very simple postulates: first, that all species strive to procreate; and second, that all species face competition for critical and limited natural resources. The fundamental principle underlying Darwin's theory, however, is that all organisms fundamentally strive for life. Through this struggle: any variation, however slight and from whatever cause.