It’s been a while since my last post in this series, but that's in part I took a bit of a hiatus to learn more about human behavior.

This is the second in a series of blog posts in response to the four online ABCs of Socialism lectures.  The lectures can be found here, and the socialist info booklet that they are a part of is here.  The relevant chapter to this lecture/post is on page 30 of the booklet.

I should clarify that I essentially agree with the ideas presented in the series.  This set of blog posts just acts as a summary of their lecture, while my reflections are meant to raise my issues with specifics in their claims.

Does human nature make socialism impossible?  Adaner Usmani argues for an account of an existing human nature that does not contradict with socialist values.  He also outlines how the structure of society has an effect on the expression of our human nature.  This is all an alternative to how socialists often respond to the human nature question: that human nature doesn't exist, merely people shaped by the structure of society.

While I don’t think the philosophical problem of human nature will be solved today, I generally agree with what Usmani has to say.  Additionally, I'm particularly interested in whether his arguments are convincing to the average person living under capitalism who has grappled with this question.  After summarizing his lecture, I provide preliminary reflections on human nature and leftism.  I think the weakness in Usmani's argument is that it only focuses on a portion of the discussion on human nature & capitalism.  He answers the question posed in the title, but I think his argument can easily ignored by skeptics if the rest of the human nature / capitalism discussion is left unaddressed.  Finally, I'll cover the Q&A section, in which Usmani is asked about the secret, repressed socialist in all of us, among other things.

Usmani begins with a situation known to most socialists: someone claims that socialism will not work because it goes against human nature.  They say something along the lines of: [Humans are] selfish and they care only about themselves.  Hence: war, plunder, exploitation, violence.  With the raw materials that are human beings, you’ll never build anything other than what we have today.  The socialist gives a common socialist response: humans become who society shapes them to be.  The free-market-advocate is only so pessimistic because they have only seen people living under capitalism, and capitalism is what teaches us to be greedy, exploitative, and self-interested.  Bottom line, humans are made, not born.  Usmani calls this common socialist response the Blank Slate Thesis.

Adaner Usmani thinks that denying the existence of human nature is the wrong way to respond.  I think he’s already oversimplified both sides of the argument.  In the rest of the talk, he gives three criticisms of the Blank Slate Thesis, followed by two ways to respond better.  I think he’s mostly correct, but I don’t think he tells us anything especially useful.  He has set himself up against one of the weaker forms of the socialism is impossible because of human nature argument.

The Blank Slate Thesis is dead!

Usmani thinks the Blank Slate Thesis is a bad argument in three senses: moral, analytical, and political.

First, it makes the socialist’s moral project incoherent.  That is, socialists think they’re right because they believe that the socialist project is generally good for humans.  This requires socialists to at least assume the existence of a rudimentary human nature: we want food when hungry, a roof over our heads, and a better life for our children, etc.  Socialists think their proposed world is better specifically because they believe it to satisfy these human-nature moral judgments far better than capitalism.

Second, it creates an analytical impasse.  A large part of Marxian analysis is based in an understanding that humans react to their material conditions.  The structure of the economy and what it requires people to do to survive has a large effect on our actions and ideologies, but this effect is predictable because we share a basic human nature.

Third, the Blank Slate Thesis leads us down a road of bad politics.  When socialists see Trump’s election, or the rise of right-wing nationalism, holding the view that we don’t have a shared human nature makes it easy to write groups of people off as fundamentally racist, nationalist, sexist, and so on.  Instead, Usmani says, we need to walk in their shoes and imagine what they have lived through to come to their positions.  Instead of elitist finger-wagging, we need to meet people where they’re at.  Since people are always motivated by a basic human nature, socialists will be able to appeal to nearly anyone, no matter the background.

Long live the alternate thesis Usmani replaces it with!

Next, Usmani discusses two points we should be bring up (instead of the Blank Slate argument) when people say that our greedy, self-centered human nature makes socialism impossible.

First is that the bourgeois conception of a selfish human nature is extremely limited—it cuts out all the other parts of our human nature.  Yes, there is some self-centeredness in humans, and it would be impossible to design a socialist society without taking that into account.  But humans are also naturally compassionate, empathetic, and reflective.  We also have a strong sense of fairness, autonomy, and dignity.  And human nature includes a desire for basic biological needs like food, housing, and health.  There are also the less admirable parts of human nature, like the already mentioned self-centeredness, or caring about our standing in the eyes of our peers.  Humans have inner demons and better angels.

Second, society’s structure does have a guiding effect: in a phrase, the organization of society is always relevant but never decisive.  It can amplify some parts of our nature and dampen others.  Capitalism amplifies our greediness and individualizing self-centeredness.  Usmani believes socialism would nurture our better angels.  If everyone’s basic needs were met, people wouldn’t have to quarrel as if everything were a zero-sum game.  A more egalitarian society would also make us appear as equals in each other’s eyes.

Usmani’s account of human nature cuts between the two poles.  We do have a human nature, but it’s not entirely greedy.  Society’s structure has a large effect on our actions, but it cannot determine everything.  It’s a plausible account, and a good basis for leftist politics.

My Quick Reflections on Human Nature's Intersection with Capitalism and the Leftist Project

I agree with Usmani: it is not the case that socialism is conceptually inconsistent with human nature.  My postmodernist blood boils when I think that human nature might include abstract concepts of justice, but as far as these human behaviors are explained through evolution, I can concede the point.

I think Usmani does a good job at arguing his points and answering the question posed.  But the human nature question is far wider than whether socialism is rendered impossible.  For example, people might think that human nature will make the practical transition from capitalism to socialism insurmountably difficult (and therefore not think it's worth bothering with).  Or, as many historians and Marxists are wont to do, capitalism might be portrayed as naturally arising from human nature (of course, most Marxists also think socialism will be the next step in the evolution of our political economy).  The point that capitalism historically emerges from and is rooted in human nature is taken up and argued against by Ellen Meiksins Wood in The Origin of Capitalism.

Is capitalism practically insurmountable because its massive efficiency can always out-compete a socialist economy?  Is capitalism the natural conclusion of the human tendency to trade goods and invent efficient solutions to fulfill our wants and desires?  Those two questions around the human nature / capitalism conversation fester in the back of the mind.  Because they are left unanswered in this lecture, although a layperson would probably agree with Usmani's account of human nature, I don't think they would be inspired to believe that another world is possible, at least not practically.  And they will not be wholly convinced unless those two issues are well-addressed (at the very least).

Q&A Extras: Notes and Reflection

Because there's so much overlap between human nature values and socialist values, are all people secretly socialist?

"Yes," Usmani eventually answers.  The principles of socialism, he thinks, are mostly captured by our intuitive conception of fairness.  He mentions that the basic idea that nothing arbitrary about a person should impede a their right to flourish gets you 95% of the way to socialism.

I think it's dangerous to have the mindset that people generally secretly agree with socialist values.  It's common in the progressive movement to think that our ideas will be broadly accepted by everyone because they're so common-sense.  While we are in an era of growing economic anti-establishment sentiment, the progressive stances on social issues like race, gender, abortion, religion, and immigration are extremely polarizing.  People are not secretly socialist, but most have the potential to be socialist, which is why it's important in organizing to meet people where they're at.

If people are secretly socialist, why is there not already a large socialist movement?

Usmani's answer is broadly that people learn from the society they grow up in, so it's our job to reach out to people, meet them where they're at, and teach them the ways of wokeness.

The ABCs of Socialism pamphlet also mentions the fact that individuals are easily fired and replaced, which discourages most people from doing anything in the first place.  The future for the left, as it has always been, is in a concerted mass movement.

What are the dangers of interpreting human nature incorrectly?

Adaner again emphasizes that we are in danger of writing people off too quickly if we are unable to recognize our common human nature.  More importantly, we are in danger of coming off as elitist pricks.