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Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origin of Freedom

Posted on: Sunday, 16 November 2003, 06:00 CST

Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origin of Freedom By Paul H. Rubin. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Pp. xx, 228 pages. $25.00 (paperback).

Paul H. Rubin's Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origin of Freedom is another in a sequence of books that attempt to explain human behavior through the use of evolutionary psychology. In some ways Rubin's book is the most ambitious of the lot. I say this because the others tend to explain specific, often sexual, behaviors using evolutionary concepts, but Rubin tries to explain the existence of political institutions and why people participate in activities that do not seem to be evolutionarily adaptive. He tries to explain Aristotle's claim that "man is by nature a political animal" outside the Aristotelian framework. Rather, he employs the tools of sociobiology; this is no trivial task.

Earlier books, such as Matt Ridley's The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation and Robert Wright's The Moral Animal, use evolutionary biology to explain why selfish genes may lead to actions that look like unselfish or moral behavior. This book attempts to reach a little further than the others in terms of explaining modern institutions as well as individual political and economic behavior. Rubin explores the implications of evolutionary biology on the nature of humans and their preferences. In short, he tries to show that early Homo sapiens looked nothing like the Lockean or Hobbesian blank slates on which much of modern political science is based. Rather, like Aristotle, he thinks there are such things as human natures, and they are important. Rubin's vision of humans differs from Aristotle's, however. Rather than viewing man as potentially between the beasts and the gods, Rubin sees humans as very smart beasts. Although Rubin's view of humankind can go a long way toward explaining quite a bit of human behavior, there are some things that sociobiology cannot explain very well. Unfortunately, many of these are political behaviors.

Rubin begins with a nice discussion of the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) and the impact that environment would have had on early humans. In the EEA there would have been little of the division of labor that Adam Smith identifies as the source of wealth, and the world would have seemed like a zero-sum place. This, in addition to the fact that male reproductive success is limited primarily by access to females, can explain why males who effectively engage in political activities are able to leave more offspring. Hence we are likely to be descendants of politically adept fathers and inherit those traits.

In order to understand politics, we must first understand human behavior in groups. Rubin explores the evolutionary basis for group behavior, altruism, and envy. Since early humans lived in small groups that were patrilocally organized, members of these bands would have tended to be related and formed strong ties. Evolutionary arguments can easily explain cooperation within and competition among these groups. Rubin then suggests that these behaviors rather easily extend to almost any kind of group. This particular evolutionary phenomenon is claimed to be the basis for much of the unfortunate ethnic conflict we see around the world today.

After examining one evolutionary basis of cooperation and competition, Rubin moves to trying to explain altruistic behavior within an evolutionary framework. He is on target when he describes altruism as "the basic problem of sociobiology." Altruism is distinct from cooperation and is difficult to explain without the benefit of kin selection. Following Robert Trivers' taxonomy of social traits, altruistic behavior occurs when a person acts so as to benefit someone else at a cost to himself. Although cooperation can be explained quite easily with reciprocity, altruism presents a much more formidable problem. This is one of those behaviors that sociobiology just has not been able to explain very well.

Rubin then takes the rather bold step of trying to explain how three philosophical systems-utilitarianism, the Rawlsian system, and Marxism-fit into this evolutionary scheme. Although I admire the effort, I think the analysis is flawed. His thinking about utility being related to fitness is troubling. It seems to me that taking his argument seriously requires that somehow pleasure and pain (mankind's two sovereign masters, according to Bentham) should count for less as women get older and certainly end at menopause, whereas they should be accounted for rather uniformly throughout the years for men. Although his claims about utilitarianism look reasonable on the surface, I do not think they work.

The final third of the book ties together ideas about political power and the relevance for today. I do not have any trouble accepting the notion that men in earlier times engaged in politics as a means of obtaining mates. His argument can go a long way toward explaining why men seem to seek positions of power much more than do women. I also think his discussion of polygynous versus monogamous mating is insightful. It seems clear to me that the social cost of vast numbers of men without marriage prospects roaming the streets far exceeds any imaginable evolutionary benefit from allowing polygyny.

Once again, however, we come upon a number of human behaviors that sociobiology just does not seem to explain. For example, although income transfers can make sense among related individuals, sociobiology has a difficult time explaining these programs in a country of 280 million. One of my favorite economic puzzles is voting behavior. I know of no explanation (evolutionary or otherwise) that satisfies the test of economic rationality for why people vote. Moreover, from an economist's perspective it makes no sense for voter turnout to increase for presidential elections, but it does. Voting almost always involves incurring an identifiable cost with a negligible probability of making a difference.

Darwinian Politics offers a novel perspective on the development of political and economic behavior. Rubin brings the power, as well as the limitations, of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology to bear on explaining why modern institutions look as they do. Although some of what he says is a stretch, the book is provocative and offers plausible connections between evolutionary biology and politics.

Bruce Linster

U.S. Air Force Academy

Copyright Southern Economic Association Oct 2003

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