The Biological Reason Socialism Always Fails — Nicholas Wade
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What biological reasons explain why communism fails?
You basically did something that I've been trying to explain for a very long time, the biological reasons for why communism worked. And you give a fascinating example of voluntary communism, which was the kibbutz system in Israel.
That was a wonderful natural experiment. So the founders who decided in Israel they would not just start anew, but they would build a whole new world based on a new kind of person who would be a good, unselfish person. It's a very dangerous system when you don't reward people on the basis of their merit. This is one of the big problems of not taking human nature seriously, not accepting the fact that we have certain behaviors written into our genome by evolution because of our survival values. Our instinct is entirely warlike. I mean, we have genocide written into our genes.
What is the kibbutz system and how does it serve as a natural experiment?
Nicholas Wade, welcome to Trigonometry.
Thanks for having me.
It's so good to have you on. Francis and I picked up your book a few days ago. You know, to be honest, we have to read a lot of books because we interview a lot of people, so it can sometimes feel like a chore, but the moment we opened your book, we were like, whoa, give me more of this, because it was so fascinating. You talk, it's called The Origin of Politics, and it's about evolution and how evolution evolutionary history shapes the way we do everything, actually, in a way that we've totally forgotten in our society now. So we're going to talk about all of that. But before we do, tell us a little bit about you. What's your story? What's been your journey through life?
Well, I grew up in England and I worked for Nature, the scientific journal, who sent me out to Washington to be their Washington correspondent. And after a year, I was asked by our big rival, science, to join them. So I worked for science for 10 years. And then I joined the New York Times as an editorial writer covering scientific environmental subjects. And I worked for the Times once. I guess, right before 30, 40 years. Wow. That's it. Very brief biography.
Yeah. Well, you've written a number of books. Some of them have caused a bunch of controversies as well. We'll maybe talk about that later. But let's talk about what you are actually talking about in Origin of Politics. You give this... You basically did something that I've been trying to... explain for a very long time as someone who was born in the Soviet Union, which you basically explain why communism never works, the biological reasons for why communism works. And you give a fascinating example of voluntary communism, which was the kibbutz system in Israel. Talk to us about that.
How does human nature challenge socialist ideals?
That was a wonderful natural experiment. So the founders who were of fleeing the anti-Semitism in their homelands, decided in Israel they would not just start anew, but they would build a whole new world based on a new kind of person who would be a good, unselfish person. So it was a really great and noble ideal, but it required doing things that run right against the grain of human nature. So the first astounding thing they did was to abolish the family. So the family has been sort of the basic unit of human society since the dawn of time. So the kibbutz is arranged that the children would live apart from their families in sort of dormitories. They were allowed to see their families just at the end of the day for a brief period, but otherwise they were raised communally.
And the idea was that the woman would be released from the patriarchy of the father. So these guys came from sort of patriarchal Jewish families that they really wanted to get rid of entirely. So women didn't depend on their husbands for anything and they could have whatever jobs they chose. Those were the features of, that was one big thing that the kibbutzim did. And the other was to abolish pay. So everyone got the same pay, whether they worked hard or slacked off. And the reason was to make sure that you had a condition of total equality. No one was richer or better than anyone else. No one could boss anyone else around. So on paper, it was ideal.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What biological reasons explain why communism fails?
0:02–0:59
2
What is the kibbutz system and how does it serve as a natural experiment?
0:59–2:46
3
How does human nature challenge socialist ideals?
2:46–5:07
4
What evolutionary forces shape competition and cooperation in human societies?
5:07–26:07
5
How did the kibbutzim evolve over generations?
26:07–30:49
6
What role does merit play in societal structures?
30:49–1:12:47
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