Cant escape biology. Is Libertarianism a Force of Nature?

Like everything else in the realm of living things, political systems are born, mature and eventually whither away, replaced by new forms of social organization . A communitys way of conducting its affairs isor should bean expression of its bio logical needs and tendencies. Therefore, political regimes based on principles r eflecting the human natural imperatives should produce happiest and most stable societies. The last hundred years have seen massive social experiments based on the ideas o f justice, equality, racial brotherhood and other well-sounding notions that, un fortunately, have no meaning in the science of biology. Without exception, popul ations sucked into the utopias of communism, fascism, race purity/superiority an d religious extremism suffered cataclysmic failures. Joined by millions at least at the beginning of enthusiastic participants, these experiments failed not for l ack of popular support. After having killed millions of their real and imaginary foes, the proponents of New Order did not suffer defeat through the lack of rev olutionary fervor. And they did not lose because of cultural backwardness; in fa ct some of these societies were science leaders. The regimes based on pure socia l ideology failed because their fundaments were laid on the imaginary fluff of t heoretical concepts rather than on the hard rock of human biological traits. One would think we should have great interest in delineating our natural, biolog ical propensities, but Homo sapiens politics seem to be a taboo for practitioner s of science. Why biologists are so rarely heard in political disputes, even whe n accounts of social behavior of wolves, crows and apes regularly entertain the public? Instead, demagogues, mystics and know-nothing-useful activists crowd the field, leaving no room for people who might tell us something new about who we are and what social structures might serve us best. During the past few decades, a new discipline, sociobiology, emerged with the un ique goal of exploring the biological base of our social organization. Scientist s to boot, these man and women use exact tools of inquiry to formulate their opi nions. Their language is quite unlike the flowery narrative of social tinkerers. It leaves little room of maneuver for spin-doctors and, perhaps, this is why po liticians and mass media do not take to the sociobiology discoveries too kindly. The dry facts are not very useful for bamboozling the public. Without pretending to be an expert in sociobiology or evolutionary biology (I am a surgeon), I d like to introduce a few of the ideas that deeply affected my po litical attitudes. I came to believe that the libertarian system of values follo ws the evolutionary forces most closely, and the humanity willeventuallydiscover i ts biologic destiny in the political organization promoted by this movement. An organism, a garden weed or a homeowner, has only two primary reasons to give up some of its precious energy while acting: self-preservation and reproduction. Our ambitions, love, dutiesall those high-minded reasons for work and struggle d erive their meaning from these two primary, selfish goals, nothing else. And if that link is severed, the responsibilities are often snubbed and duties are conv eniently forgotten. It is very hard to motivate people who have nothing to gain in terms of survival, mating opportunities and child rearing, as many ideal-based communities have found out. Our story started with a strand of DNA, whichregardless of its originhad to exploi t its environment to obtain the energy necessary to combat the inexorable gnawin g of entropy. Mercilessly crowded by other forms of life and pummeled by environ mental hazards, the first organisms used occasional errors in transcription of t heir genetic code to improve their chances of survival. They grew protective cel lular membrane, evolved into multi-cellular organisms and finally started to org anize into social groups. This chain of events, even if not yet completely under stood, is not very controversial for most of us, just a junior high-level explan ation of the evolution. No one would propose to slip into it any notions of just ice or fairness; the selfish own-interest and drive to procreate appear quite su fficient, no need for ethical considerations. However, once we get to the human evolution, a major problem arises, warming hea

rts of the social idealists who prefer to believe into the natural goodness of f ellow humans. Some members of Homo sapiens communitiesbut also certain mammalian specieswere noted to exhibit a biologically suspect behavior, altruism. The scien tists found out that, on occasion, individuals acted against their own interest in order to protect other members of their pack. Now, we can intuitively accept that a subject (including a naked ape) would risk his life to protect the set of genes encoded in the body of his/her offspring, but to get killed in order to s ave a stranger? That, honestly, looks counterproductive in terms of evolution an d flies into face of its classic teachings. Yet, humans do it. Is there a way to clarify this phenomenon without drawing on holly scriptures and romantic verses? Perhaps, many uplifting twists of our hist ory can be explained only through the unselfish love and divine guidance! Alas, the mystical goodness of our kind can be accounted for without calling upon high er powers. And what a humiliating account it is! We are back to selfishness. The kin selection theory spoils the spiritual party. It is rather embarrassing t o note that the roots of our selfishness reach even deeper than our individual c onsciousness. The twisted chains of DNA, the primordial force powering our very existence, are paragons of the pure, unadulterated egoism. The warped nucleotide chains care about nothing else but their own preservation and replication. A hu man body, this magnificent structure built around the genetic code, means to the m nothing more than a vehicle carrying the genes. Oops, actually, they need some thing else, a facility to multiply their DNA patterns; we serve that purpose as well. How about our intellect, self-awareness and passions? Unfortunately, for o ur DNA its just the software necessary to run smoothly this combination of a taxi and a noodle factory. Anger and disappointment. Its hard not be emotionally upset by this account of ou r existence. It is only natural to seek consolation in a religion; accept a more palatable justification for our being and, even better, hope for eternity. The reader who wishes to preserve the self-respect accorded by his or her spiritual beliefs might stop reading right here, because the narrative of our existence ju st gets worse. Unfortunately, the comfort flowing from ignoring facts comes at t he expense of decreased ability to cope with the real world. According to calculus of gene proliferation, it is sometimes advantageous to sac rifice an individual to ensure survival (and further multiplication) of a few mo re DNA-carrying units. Like in a game of chess, swapping a pawn for a tower may be a good move. Nothing personal, pawn. Throw in a few millions years, while self-sacrifice-prone individuals are reward ed with better breeding opportunities, and we have a deep genetic pool of heroic homeland defenders. A beehive, a termite colony or the beloved fatherlandonce we strip the poetic veneer of human rationalization, its the same biological mechan ism, regardless of a species. Equipped with intelligence and imagination, our co mmunities give this process an extra push, consciously promoting the self-immola tion attitude. How not to celebrate a heroic soldier who throws himself on a han d grenade to save from certain death his mates in a foxhole? Undoubtedly, it is a real gallantry, and a solid benefit to his group, but could this bravery be tr aced to the selfish, single-minded DNA strand hell-bent on proliferation? Ah, not so fast! an alert critic might say. Soldiers in a foxhole are unlikely to b e closely related; they almost certainly carry different genotypes. The heros dea th would not help to spread his genes! It just does not make any sense! The t the The critic would be right. The kin At this point, the whole story extreme egoism we have to face self-sacrificing soldiers DNA selection theory would be useless here, excep becomes even more maddening, because on top of a fraud, this time committed by our leaders. was intentionally duped, misled and deceived.

For millions of years, our ancestors lived in small bands of closely related ind ividuals: brothers, sisters and cousins. They formed a gene pool that needed to be defended, even at the cost of life sacrifice. It is not true any more; our co mmunities are extremely diverse now. Any big city apartment building has tenants whose roots reach to three or four continents, but nobody told our DNA about it . As long as individuals live in a tightly knitted unit, like a prehistoric trib e or a modern platoon of Marines, they are a band of brothers, as they say in Ho llywood. Armies of the world have been taking advantage of this biological confu sion forever. Military tacticians took note and they still exploit their soldier s real motivation in battleto protect their close buddies. Not much has changed ov er the millennia. The grand words about the beloved country, honor and God come later, in time for pinning medals. There is no hope for songwriters and propagandists to spread this explanation of altruism; it wont bring them any sponsors. But for the rest of us, understanding our human inheritance in biological terms is valuable, because we will be happi er once our political structure aligns with our natural instincts, no matter how unromantic they might be. An argument can be made that we have outgrown our base instincts, overcoming the selfish DNA influence. Perhaps, we are more like angels, now, driven by intelle ct and highly developed social feelings. There might be some truth to it, but I suspect that we still have a rather long way to reach the level of cherub morali ty. We are still acting out our biological egoism; its just that our definitions are changing, expanding the field of our benevolence wider and wider. We recogni ze better now that many genetically unrelated individuals could advance our biol ogical goals, and therefore should be engaged into a reciprocal game of favors. The development of highly complex beehives, anthills, bands of primates, or huma n societies is directly related to advantages such organizations afford. These s ophisticated associations became the preferred way of propagating genes because of their higher efficiencies of food and shelter provision, safety, and increase d opportunities to reproduce. But the advantages came with price; members had to give up their independence. In some insect communities, individuals even forfei ted their identity. Anthills are not friendly places for exuberant individualist s or their political movements; highly specialized communities have to live by s tringent rules. However, the evolutionary track of Homo sapiens turned away from such super spec ialization, directing us toward individual intelligence and self-aware identity. This personal autonomy obviously complicates the challenge of governing us, if we are to be pushed into the mold of an anthill. Just recall the trouble that di scovery of the word I produced in Ayn Rands "Anthem." Nevertheless, in order to keep the benefits of communal life, we have to be orga nized somehow. Lets review the ways of maintaining social order, hoping to find the system of governance that is best aligned with our broadly understood biolog ical needs. 1. The threat system. Rules are enforced by threat of retaliation by leaders and peers. This is the prevalent system in certain specialized institutions such as the police, the judicial system, and the military. 2. The exchange system. Relationships are based on favors and other good deeds p erformed in expectation of monetary or non-monetary compensation. A market free of outside pressures exemplifies this system. 3. The integrative system. Activities are motivated by such altruistic feelings as love, friendship, and solidarity, without any apparent promise of reward, exc ept for feelings of fulfillment and happiness. A well-functioning family can ser ve as an example.

All societies employ some combinations of these three systems, their character b eing determined by the predominance of one or another such method of persuasion. Our primitive ancestors were strongly bound by family ties. The biological urg e to protect one s kin was paramount. The world was young with a lot of empty sp ace open to all; in case of a strong family disagreement, the aggrieved parties could part without bloodshed. The integrative system probably prevailed. Things changed when humans developed agriculture. Increased production allowed t he barter of excess food and trade started in earnest. A leap in productivity an d wealth occurred when first cities were built, allowing for the division of lab or. Tax collectors could not be far behind as the ruler wanted his share. The co mmunitys modus operandi changed dramatically in favor of the rule by threat. At t he same time, mobility of the producing class decreased dramatically because fre e land was not available any more. Except for a small class of skilled workers, working the land was the only way of earning a living and to abandon ones field m eant starvation. Ordinary producers were now trapped in the system of coercion a nd personal liberty practically disappeared for most. Fast forward to the industrial revolution, which released millions of people fro m agricultural labor, so they could fulfill the needs of rapidly growing industr ies. Workers material fortunes might not be better at first, but due to their fre edom of movement and ability to withdraw services, they could advance economical ly and grow their political power. The unrestrained system of rule by threat shi fted toward the system of voluntary exchange of services for goods and money. This shift continues and even accelerates as barriers to personal mobility keep falling. What used to be a major inconvenience, and a substantial risk, for an 1 8th-century immigrant to America has become a pleasant seven-hour flight. Nation al borders are porous, and people with skills in high demand can walk in through the main door. Governments fight rear-guard battles to retain the control over the movement of people and money, but confronted with the labor mobility, effici encies of exchange and allure of personal freedom, the threat system loses rapid ly. The exchange system, best exemplified by the libertarian concepts, becomes a pos sibility as people learn to cooperate in their broadly defined self-interest. Th e pressure of threats is not necessary as long as the participants are self-moti vated by their own needs. It has to be noted, however, that cutting the linkage between ones needs and their corresponding efforts would result in failure of the system, as victims of the communist experiment witnessed. Able to offer their services to this or another competing organization, the skil led mobile workers are gaining unprecedented power. National and multinational o rganizations find themselves under significant pressure to accommodate the highvalue workers who vote with their feet. Countries and institutions incapable of shifting from the oppressive threat system to the voluntary exchange based regim e, are likely to be shunned and left lacking the best talent. The authoritarian states are likely to be stuck with a low-quality workforce, falling behind in a global competition, losing international significance and domestic peace. What about the integrative system? What about the societies built on love, based on the promise of equal sharing and solidarity? The grand-scale experiments of communism and fascism have been condemned by their outcomes. In practice, the so cial structures based on patriotism, class or ethnic brotherhood rapidly degener ated into totalitarian, terror-based societies, bringing nothing but cataclysmic failures and catastrophic defeats. And yetwho knows-perhaps the integrative way of life will work better in smaller c ommunities when coupled with the exchange system? After all, the kin-selection p rinciple works well within families and small groups. A society based on the lib ertarian (exchange system) principles, but incorporating integrative attitudes m

ight succeed in small communities, while the unrealistic socialist states failed miserably. When could we hope for the enlightened political system to emerge where threats are no longer necessary? Its a tall order to predict such an event, but lets try t o consider the history of human species from the perspective of biological and s ocial evolution. The rapid changes of the past 300 years dwarf the slow advance of many previous millennia. For millions of years, the unhurried genetic accumul ation of new features proceeded in tandem with the inefficient transmission of c ultural heritage. Like all mammalian species, Homo sapiens used the inter-genera tional instruction (parents to children). In the unknown moment of our history, a new revolutionary device appeared, a sym bolic thought. Then, a few hundred years ago the abstract thinking had been comb ined with a practical method of retaining and disseminating the accumulated wisd om, a printing press. Our cultural evolution took off on a moon-shot trajectory. A vertical, parents-to-children, transmission has been supplemented by innumer able modes of information transmission: formal education, peer group exchange, s olitary book reading, etc. Extended by the 21st-century means of information sto rage and broadcast, the amount of current knowledge is now limited only by ones b rain capacity to absorb it. Accordingly, the ratio of genetic to cultural change (nature vs. nurture) in our evolution has dramatically changed in favor of cultural transformation. This sh ould be the last nail in the coffin of any notion concerning genetic superiority or purity. Genetics are now responsible for only a small portion of disparity between individuals. In fact, genetically, we all are not that much different f rom our root-hunting ancestors. Currently, any given populations intellectual pro wess reflects mostly its access to the available sources of knowledge, as well a s its willingness to utilize the resource. As access to the information base is increasing due to the proliferation of the world-wide-web, the participation in the evolutionary advance might be stalling. A casual look around is enough to conclude that the new wonders of technology a re mostly used for entertainment. The true hunger disappeared as a motivator in America, leaving more subtle incentives as drivers of progress: power of consump tion, social status and esoteric pleasures of learning for fun. People are free to use their time and resources to advance their personal growth, but just as ea sily, they may chose the intellectually deprived amusement. Due to a torrid pace of the culturally based evolution, choices made by individu als may change a population very fast. Societies dominating the world for hundre ds of years may transform into strugglers when their citizens lose interest in l earning, while new leaders emerge. People who choose an easy life devoid of person al effort will pay stiff price along with their countries. The evolutionary lose rs will not be able to hide behind national borders in a global economy. Support ed and protected by welfare institutions for now, the un-ambitious slackers are being slowly relegated to the bottom of economic pit. Intellectually backward an d unable to compete, they are likely to remain there as permanent clients of the ir increasingly weak and stingy state. Is such an outcome fair and politically acceptable? Fairness is not a biological term and it will have little impact on our future, at least until we become mor e like angels. The evolution never stops and it will not wait for elections. The winners will thrive and the losers are likely to disappear, as it has always be en. Social Darwinism got itself bad press because of the suspicions that we might ha ve to abandon the weak or fight our neighbors for survival. That is an extremely narrow and unreasonable interpretation of our biological destiny. We will alway

s have certain percentage of disabled persons who need our protection and this i s hardly a burden for any advanced society. As for the image of humans fighting each other like dogs over an economic prize, it is a dramatic misrepresentation of reality. In fact, the voluntary exchange principle specifically forbids initi ation of an armed conflict. Apart from any ethical consideration, the prize alwa ys come cheaper bought in a free market than won in a war. Indeed, it were the p roponents of a strong state based on threat and nationalistic propaganda who wag ed all wars, big and small. The great majority of people, who are sinking right now into the underclass, cou ld be helped immediately. More than anything, they need to have their motivation restored by regaining ownership of their fate, as libertarians propose. The cau se-effect relationship between ones effort and quality of his/her life should be restored; the productive use of ones mental power must be again in everybodys best self-interest. Readers who cannot bear the thought of reducing a state support for able but dis interested individuals might want to look at the fate of intellectually impaired people. Despite all the well-meaning declarations, such individuals do not own their lives. At best, they are rigidly controlled in special needs institutions; at worst, they populate prisons. Genetically intact but culturally backward per sons will follow the same path. In biological terms, what counts is the level at which the organism functions, not the origin of deficiency. Once we use the term broadly enough, the evolution favors organisms and organiza tions displaying selfish behavior. Are we so much ahead of other forms of life t hat it does not apply to humanity? Yes, we might answer, if political propaganda is our exclusive source of informa tion. No, could be a better answer for those who admit evidence of their own eye s. The evolutionary processes do not follow ideologies or human aesthetic notion s. The biological reality may be deceptively disguised for public consumption an d political benefit, but we all would be better served by its full representatio n. I believe that a society based on a voluntary cooperation among individuals who pursue their enlightened self-interest fits best into our biological destiny. Th rough the free exchange system, such a society could maximize economic benefits and encourage more members of our species to earnestly climb the evolutionary la dder. Among political movements, Libertarianism seems to fulfill these postulate s best. Will we ever see a society govern by libertarian principles? I believe we will, as the social development is heading toward the increased freedom and power of p roductive individuals. At first, it may come into existence only in modestly siz ed communities, outliers in the vast stretch of humanity still controlled by pro paganda, intellectual stupor and fear. Cities floating in the international wate rs, as proposed by the seasteading movement, come to mind, and they might become models for new political arrangements. Eventually, the biology will win. It alw ays does. The stars are aligning for a libertarian experiment. www.vagabondworks.com