Maq Masi Blog

For centuries, philosophers have looked to nature for insight into how we ought to live. Taoist sages, observing rivers that bend around obstacles and trees that yield to the wind, found lessons in quiet adaptability. Charles Darwin too uncovered profound truths in nature, showing through his theory of evolution that life advances by selecting traits best suited for survival. Yet many who followed him overlooked nature’s fuller lesson: beyond mere survival lies a deep reliance on cooperation.

Darwin’s theory, at its core, describes how species evolve through natural selection—a process involving both competition and cooperation. However, several prominent philosophers cherry-picked aspects of this framework, leading to skewed ideologies.

Herbert Spencer’s Social Darwinism (Social Statics, 1851) fixated on competition, portraying society as a battleground where only the strongest should prevail. This view, akin to watching a lion’s hunt while ignoring the pride’s nurturing bonds, underpinned Gilded Age monopolies and left workers languishing. It neglected the cooperative mechanisms that Darwin saw as equally vital to survival.

Friedrich Nietzsche, inspired partly by evolutionary ideas, celebrated the Übermensch—an individual rising above conventional morality. Later interpretations warped this into elitist doctrines, sidelining the communal ties that sustain any society, a far cry from Darwin’s broader vision.

Meanwhile, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin drew on Darwin’s materialism to frame history as perpetual class struggle. They sought to organise workers into state-controlled systems, but their coercive methods—culminating in the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991—lacked the voluntary, adaptive cooperation Darwin observed in nature, revealing a rigidity that stifled renewal.

These thinkers shared a common error: they latched onto one facet of evolution—competition, struggle or supremacy—and turned it into an absolute doctrine, overlooking nature’s intricate balance. Darwin’s theory, like the Taoist lens that sees both strength and yielding, encompasses rivalry for innovation and cooperation for survival. Modern biology supports this duality: primates exhibit reciprocal altruism, while forest trees compete for sunlight yet share nutrients via fungal networks.

Scandinavian Class Collaboration: A Balanced Application

Scandinavian countries offer a living example of applying Darwin’s insights correctly, balancing competition and cooperation through class collaboration. This approach is not just policy but a cultural ethos, yielding tangible results.

In Sweden, about 90% of workers benefit from collective bargaining agreements, where unions and employers jointly set wages. This minimises strikes and results in a Gini coefficient of 0.28, indicating low inequality. Denmark’s “flexicurity” model pairs business flexibility with strong welfare support, maintaining unemployment around 5.8%. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, built from oil revenues, benefits all citizens, reflecting shared prosperity. Finland’s education system, consistently top-ranked globally (PISA 2022), ensures equal opportunity for all.

These outcomes stem from historical choices. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, leaders like Hjalmar Branting, Sweden’s first social democratic prime minister, prioritised negotiation over revolution. The 1938 Saltsjöbaden Agreement exemplifies this, forging employer-union pacts. Scandinavia’s smaller, cohesive societies, unburdened by rigid aristocracies, fostered trust and compromise—unlike larger nations that veered toward Spencer’s individualism or enforced unity that crushed adaptability.

Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Universal Solution

Pyotr Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid (1902) provides a compelling lens for reinterpreting Darwin. He argued that cooperation, alongside competition, drives evolution—a view contrasting Marx’s conflict focus or Lenin’s top-down control. Kropotkin’s anarchism envisioned voluntary, decentralised collaboration, a model echoed today in Spain’s Mondragon cooperative, where workers own and profit from their enterprise. Broader examples—worker-owned firms, community governance, universal healthcare—reflect ecosystems that support all members, not just the elite. The United States, with a Gini coefficient of 0.41, illustrates the inequality that arises from overemphasising competition.

Reflections on Today’s World

America was, in many ways, built on a foundation of global cooperation. It drew on the ideas, labour and resources of countless countries, forged alliances, and helped establish international institutions to safeguard peace and shared prosperity. Yet much of today’s world leadership now follows an American economic model that often prioritises growth, markets and shareholder returns over communal well-being. In recent years, this same power has begun to threaten or withdraw from the very international organisations it once helped create — distancing itself from climate agreements, global health bodies and international courts designed to protect collective security and human rights.

This direction echoes a narrow, competitive reading of Darwin, one that elevates survival of the fittest while overlooking the mutual aid that sustains healthy ecosystems. Nature thrives through bonds that support the entire forest, not just its tallest trees. It leaves us quietly wondering: in striving so hard to stand out, have we lost sight of how to stand together?