Work · Socialism, Anarchism, Marxism & Critical Theory
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
From animal colonies to medieval guilds: cooperation within species is a factor of evolution – a reply to the reading of Darwinism as a war of all against all.
Introduction
Kropotkin wrote the chapters as articles for the London monthly The Nineteenth Century between 1890 and 1896, in response to Thomas Huxley’s essay “The Struggle for Existence” (1888), which had compared nature to a gladiators’ show. Drawing on his observations as a young officer and geographer in Siberia, he argues that the species that cooperate best tend to survive, then traces mutual aid among humans from tribal societies through the medieval city with its guilds to modern trade unions, cooperatives and village communes. He presents his work as completing Darwin rather than rejecting him. The book appeared in 1902 and is still cited both in the anarchist tradition and in discussions of the evolution of cooperation.
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Connections
Builds on
- On the Origin of Species1859 · Charles Darwin
Taken up in
- Paths in Utopia1946 · Martin Buber
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