Outstanding research and reporting, thank you so much for your work. You have concisely articulated an essential thread of world history of the last 150 years that I think almost nobody understands and EVERYONE should.
That is an almost ridiculous number of useful clues, for my own odd autodidact education especially. I read Darwin Russell (and Welles) like crazy as a kid, discovered Laski and Weiner as a teenager. (Weiner's "Human use of human beings" struck me as the operative equivalent of Machiavelli, for the modern world - quantum influenced calculus, for the manipulation of whole populations, rather than individuals - don't worry about the particle, be what collapses the eigenstate!).
I find Russel a massive contradiction, to this day. How to reconcile the aspiration to anarchy (self-governance as an ideal) with managerial dominance, the height of elitism and exploitation? Your quotes from him, about the differing education which should be offered to the rulers and the ruled, are devastating. Hugely appreciated.
Suddenly I think of a magician's patter - "listen to my story, don't watch my hands!"
As for Wholstetter - the headmaster of the very experrimental school I attended, was of that exact class of systems geeks. So I am forever encountering things I did as a kid, which were also common pastimes at RAND. (Surreal, but also unmistakable in both tone and specifics)
In terms of my personal questioning (and I understand you and Matt are several evolutions ahead of me, here), I keep coming back to the split I first felt with both scientific socialists and especially Trotskyists, as a young idealistic teenager (almost half a century ago).
The idea of a 'program' makes perfect sense, if you want to gather together in order to change society. But in almost every case, what I observed was the adoption of whatever program suited the particular (borderline sociopathic) excesses of the individual.
That is - nothing actually sourced from deep humane principle, fairness, or respect - unhinged ego only. Never could get with that much unkindness, or dishonesty.
Really enjoy your work. Mustn't say "Negation of negation" but you and Matt help me untangle a lot of sentimental impulses, from irrationalities, by showing the power serving distortions so often overlooked, by pabulum (corporate?) history.
Hi, you write that "The Fabian Society would define itself as a socialist movement, influenced by Karl Marx and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation soon founding England’s Labour Party in 1900." But you source this to a Wikipedia article that doesn't mention Karl Marx.
My understanding is that the Fabian Society was *not* primarily influenced by Karl Marx, but by the late period writings of John Stuart Mill, which advocated a very different form of socialism, *not* centered on working-class revolution.
Also, the Fabians approach to eugenics comes mainly through Thomas Malthus, not Darwin, as Malthus was a role model to John Stuart Mill. Karl Marx despised Malthus and actually denounced him in Capital Volume I. Marx believed in unleashing the forces of production and spreading the produce widely whereas Malthus believed in hoarding products so the poor couldn't "overpopulate." Mill's version of socialism believed in ultimately constraining production for a "steady state economy."
There's some nuance here that you are correct in pointing out. Among the Fabian founders Beatrice and Sidney Webb didn't support Marx, relying Mill and Malthus as their foundation stones. George B Shaw however did advocate Marx and exclaimed that reading Marx profoundly changed his entire worldview (that said, I agree with you that he was playing a Delphic game and ultimately wanted to nudge followers into a Malthusian box. Unfortunately, Darwin's theory on Natural Selection were drawn explicitly from Darwin's studies of Malthus where he wrote in his autobiography:
"s Darwin later admitted in his autobiography that his own theory arose directly from his study of Malthus:
“In October 1838, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of a new species. Here then, I had at last got a theory by which to work”."
Darwin additionally wrote to Galton after publishing 'Descent of Man' that "you have made a convert out of me"
The Huxley X Club is the guiding hand controlling the entire thing.
Additionally messy is the fact that Karl Marx authored the 1873 German edition of Das Capital with a dedication to Darwin because he correctly identified Darwin's axiomatics as the understructure for his interpretation of the evolution of the productive forces and dimat.
I wrote about both of these aspects in the two following articles:
Right, but that doesn't change the fact that Marx's direct intellectual relationship to Malthus was a hostile one.
Marx's relationship to Darwin's legacy is further nuanced, as you say, by the fact that Marxists were some of the most organized opponents to the "Social Darwinism" of Herbert Spencer in the Victorian Era. First generation Social Darwinism actually has some significant differences from eugenics, as Social Darwinism--like first generation Malthusianism--is largely premised on passively ignoring the needs of the masses (Spencer was a laissez faire capitalist) rather than actively intervening either for or against them.
Outstanding research and reporting, thank you so much for your work. You have concisely articulated an essential thread of world history of the last 150 years that I think almost nobody understands and EVERYONE should.
Thank you for this, Cynthia!
That is an almost ridiculous number of useful clues, for my own odd autodidact education especially. I read Darwin Russell (and Welles) like crazy as a kid, discovered Laski and Weiner as a teenager. (Weiner's "Human use of human beings" struck me as the operative equivalent of Machiavelli, for the modern world - quantum influenced calculus, for the manipulation of whole populations, rather than individuals - don't worry about the particle, be what collapses the eigenstate!).
I find Russel a massive contradiction, to this day. How to reconcile the aspiration to anarchy (self-governance as an ideal) with managerial dominance, the height of elitism and exploitation? Your quotes from him, about the differing education which should be offered to the rulers and the ruled, are devastating. Hugely appreciated.
Suddenly I think of a magician's patter - "listen to my story, don't watch my hands!"
As for Wholstetter - the headmaster of the very experrimental school I attended, was of that exact class of systems geeks. So I am forever encountering things I did as a kid, which were also common pastimes at RAND. (Surreal, but also unmistakable in both tone and specifics)
In terms of my personal questioning (and I understand you and Matt are several evolutions ahead of me, here), I keep coming back to the split I first felt with both scientific socialists and especially Trotskyists, as a young idealistic teenager (almost half a century ago).
The idea of a 'program' makes perfect sense, if you want to gather together in order to change society. But in almost every case, what I observed was the adoption of whatever program suited the particular (borderline sociopathic) excesses of the individual.
That is - nothing actually sourced from deep humane principle, fairness, or respect - unhinged ego only. Never could get with that much unkindness, or dishonesty.
Really enjoy your work. Mustn't say "Negation of negation" but you and Matt help me untangle a lot of sentimental impulses, from irrationalities, by showing the power serving distortions so often overlooked, by pabulum (corporate?) history.
Cheers for what you do!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hi, you write that "The Fabian Society would define itself as a socialist movement, influenced by Karl Marx and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation soon founding England’s Labour Party in 1900." But you source this to a Wikipedia article that doesn't mention Karl Marx.
My understanding is that the Fabian Society was *not* primarily influenced by Karl Marx, but by the late period writings of John Stuart Mill, which advocated a very different form of socialism, *not* centered on working-class revolution.
Also, the Fabians approach to eugenics comes mainly through Thomas Malthus, not Darwin, as Malthus was a role model to John Stuart Mill. Karl Marx despised Malthus and actually denounced him in Capital Volume I. Marx believed in unleashing the forces of production and spreading the produce widely whereas Malthus believed in hoarding products so the poor couldn't "overpopulate." Mill's version of socialism believed in ultimately constraining production for a "steady state economy."
See Michael Quinn, "Mill on Poverty, Population and Poor Relief: Out of Bentham by Malthus?", Revue d’études benthamiennes [En ligne], 4 | 2008 - https://journals.openedition.org/etudes-benthamiennes/185#tocto2n13
There's some nuance here that you are correct in pointing out. Among the Fabian founders Beatrice and Sidney Webb didn't support Marx, relying Mill and Malthus as their foundation stones. George B Shaw however did advocate Marx and exclaimed that reading Marx profoundly changed his entire worldview (that said, I agree with you that he was playing a Delphic game and ultimately wanted to nudge followers into a Malthusian box. Unfortunately, Darwin's theory on Natural Selection were drawn explicitly from Darwin's studies of Malthus where he wrote in his autobiography:
"s Darwin later admitted in his autobiography that his own theory arose directly from his study of Malthus:
“In October 1838, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of a new species. Here then, I had at last got a theory by which to work”."
Darwin additionally wrote to Galton after publishing 'Descent of Man' that "you have made a convert out of me"
The Huxley X Club is the guiding hand controlling the entire thing.
Additionally messy is the fact that Karl Marx authored the 1873 German edition of Das Capital with a dedication to Darwin because he correctly identified Darwin's axiomatics as the understructure for his interpretation of the evolution of the productive forces and dimat.
I wrote about both of these aspects in the two following articles:
https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/how-huxleys-x-club-created-nature
https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/the-occult-tesla-part-9
Right, but that doesn't change the fact that Marx's direct intellectual relationship to Malthus was a hostile one.
Marx's relationship to Darwin's legacy is further nuanced, as you say, by the fact that Marxists were some of the most organized opponents to the "Social Darwinism" of Herbert Spencer in the Victorian Era. First generation Social Darwinism actually has some significant differences from eugenics, as Social Darwinism--like first generation Malthusianism--is largely premised on passively ignoring the needs of the masses (Spencer was a laissez faire capitalist) rather than actively intervening either for or against them.