oh dear this would be funny as a spoof maybe....but not something you would expect from someone who had researched the subject.
It's a bit of a setup to justify his worldview rather than an attempt to review the human condition let alone observations based on reality. That fact that it goes against most of what the actual research tells us is telling in its self.

Socialism like any methodology works best depending on the situation and the way you measure success.
Greed is one of the drivers for our behaviour and important for our survival
Greed can be a great motivator and is a direct motivator in capitalism, and a indirect one for socialism. Or put another way.....the golden rule works best when you know everyone in your village.

The author seems to confuse tribalism and socialism, which is an extremely recent development, and not to be confused with communism or Buddhism or any other ism!
Moreover, there was no conscious decision making in our so-called pairing; no choice element, just normal biological attraction.
Something we have in common with the chimps?
The attempt to link this normal behavior to socialism, is risible!
The only truly regressive behavior to surface in recent years, and totally at odds with everything that is part of normal human behavior, is individualism, and all the harmful, greed is good behavior, that sprang from that.
Like say, the 85 most wealthy people on the planet, owning as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the rest of the entire planetary population!
This is hardly the survival of the fittest?
A decent day's work, say stacking bales of lucerne hay from dawn till dark, by hand, would kill them, as would trying to maintain their advantages, without the virtual tribe of brains, that they exploit, to their entirely unearned advantage.
I have yet to meet the truly self made man, you know, the one born in the very log cabin, he built with his own two hands!
More likely, just a patent nut job, ("eccentric") with one outstanding ambition?
To be the wealthiest person in the graveyard!?
If there's a life after this one, all we can take with us, is the love we cherish and our fondest memories.
For the greediest, there can be no real love, and their best memories, may be restricted, to just how well they conned mum and dad investors out of their tiny retirement nest eggs!
For heaven's sake, just don't get me started!
On things like, Ponsi schemes, worthless derivatives, short selling, high frequency trading, sub prime mortgages, and well the list is very long, and you get the picture?
A picture that stops normal human cooperation and replaces it with extreme capitalism and equally extreme exploitation, and a downward race to the bottom or lowest common denominator!
And that's devolution!
Rhrosty.

Just so true.

Socialism, the creed of the lazy & the incompetent.

'Humans split off from the chimpanzee line about six million years ago '
Such ignorance sprouted with such confidence. No doubt he accepts the gw myth along with this nonsense.

I guess to accept this article, one needs to define what you mean by progress ? I am not sure the definition I would favour is the ability to sit on a couch, watching Masterchef eating from a bucket of KFC is that of progress. That one has those choices perhaps is but they're only available to no more than 10% of the population, so once again, that's not really progress.

I would argue we haven't progressed much at all, our inability to evolve is the very crux of the issue. We have the mental attitude of stone age man, with access to incredibly destructive technologies that we use with little regard for the consequence, until it's too late. To my mind, that alone shows we have not progressed. Once we seemed to have a better understanding of our relationship with the biosphere, albeit civilisation collapse like Easter Island may disprove that theory but taking down one small part of humanity didn't impact the wider biosphere nor other parts of humanity simultaneously. The Kalahari Bushmen, for example, have been living that way for thousands of years, that seems the very definition of success ? They outlasted the Mongols, the Romans, the Khmer empires etc. Similarly the indigenous Australians, many 10's of thousands of years... the only thing ensuring their destruction is that we have a gun, we can put a "boot on their throats" and use a gun to ensure compliance with what we want.

Aside from an increased understanding of health care needs (germ theory etc)and increased access to information (Books, or these days the Internet), I don't think we've progressed much at all. All we have done is figured out how to offset to future generations the issues from our over consumption eg CO2e emissions, resource depletion, pollution etc

You may be able to switch your TV on and have a TV in every room but can you make a stone ax and support yourself unaided by modernities input ? Seems to me you;re very definition of progress revolves around some sort of collectivism enforced with a gun.

The author obviously has no idea as to exactly what socialism is qua political philosophy. His conclusion is the stuff of high school debating societies - the very likely source of his essay.

Well put Valley Guy...

This article has it all backward.

It is impossible for the human race to throw off the natural tendency to co-operate, (a trait accumulated over 5,990,000 years of our struggle before agriculture), without resorting to the vicious propaganda so aptly described by Alex Carey and Noam Chomsky in their published work.

Carey's work is published as Taking the Risk out of Democracy. Some of those posting are obvious victims of the indoctrination.

The most successful existing societies in the OECD are listed in a German study completed and published in 2011. On eight measures of social justice (well-being) the leading six are Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and The Netherlands.

Finland doesn't lead because it allows children aged below seven to play rather than start their education but then overtakes the others in the education stakes. Those leading countries are ones where co-operation leads the way.

That paragon on competitive "Christian" conservatism, the USA rates 27th of thirty-one countries only ahead of Greece, Chile, Mexico and Turkey.See;
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/blow-americas-exploding-pipe-dream.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212
http://www.sgi-network.org/pdf/SGI11_Social_Justice_OECD.pdf

runner as usual ignores the extensive evidence for evolution even though he lives on a 4.5 billion year old planet containing the remnants of the collapse of an earlier sun.

The difference between socialism and co-operation. Socialism is compulsory co-operation is optional and of a higher moral value.

I'll tell you what's outdated, David Archibald's understanding of the way human beings developed.
For one thing,agriculture didn't just "appear" 10,000 years ago, Europeans were managing the land domesticating animals for millennia before that.
It's now been shown that Neanderthals could and did speak and could have used language for far longer than was previously thought so the assertion that language "appeared" 50,000 years ago is also incorrect.
Then there's the idea of monogamy vs polygyny, that the one is more "advanced" than the other when in reality it's more a racial trait than anything else. Consider this, it's now thought that interbreeding between what's understood as "modern" humans and archaic hominids such as Neanderthals and Denisovans had dramatic effects on the fitness of the offspring. One explanation of the peculiar DNA discrepancies between the sexes and races is that such pairings produced mostly infertile female children so most proto-Eurasian men would have been lucky to have one wife, let alone be able to attract multiple sexual partners. We also have some evidence and folkloric traditions of Eurasian male war bands raiding other groups in order to take their women, the "Rape of the Sabines" is one story many educated people would be familiar with. Might we take a Darwinian approach and speculate that along with the other factors contributing to female mortality in ancient times that fertile Eurasian women were in very short supply until the archaic human DNA was diluted to the point that the effects of the admixture on genetic fitness were no longer a significant handicap?
Europeans and Asians developed in the middle East as a result of this hybridisation and spread out from there, we're not Africans who faded due to our "sitting in the rain drinking beer and eating oats for millennia" as the "Progressives" would say,comparing African R type and Eurasian K type reproductive strategies is pointless and renders the whole premise of this article null and void.

‘morning David,

I enjoyed your article enormously, thank you.

Nothing like starting the day off with a few home truths and just a dash of provocation.

<< Socialists are jealous, less-productive apes by comparison. That, and being throw-backs.>>

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Do you mean by this that socialists base their ideology on the politics of “envy”, always talking about how the rich have too much money, big banks, big oil ,big miners and self funded retirees?

Do you mean by “less productive” that they tend to be from the elite classes that produce very little national wealth, like humanities academics, political elites, trade union officials, the left wing media, eco NGO’s, Greens, deep Greens, Marxists, Communists and progressives?

When you say “throw backs”, do you mean all those who subscribe to regressive policies that try to take society back to the dark ages where socialist intellect is more at home?

You will note that on OLO we have some doctrinaire socialists whose sole response is to dispense a sound flogging by rhetoric.

One of my favorites is “cornonacob”.

As a first responder his post was a string of disconnected rhetoric finished of with a platitude. He walked off quite contented in the belief that he had actually contributed something intelligent.

Many on OLO have developed a much deeper understanding of the progressive mentality, their repetitive tactics and adopted opinions are legendary. The point has now been reached where we can respond with ridicule. We do this because there is no substance to their mantra and ridicule is one of the few remaining responses.

There will be a great many “squawking” and “gnashing of teeth” responses to your article from the left. Nothing of any intellectual depth of course, but entertaining and predictable.

"Also importantly, success was directly proportional to effort. This was the beginning of private property, capital formation, division of labour and all the other good things that led to the level of civilisation we enjoy now."

Nonsense, all those developments benefited only a tiny warrior or theocratic elite, sometimes nearly 90% or more of the population were either slaves or serfs, without social democracy that situation would still prevail.

@cornonacob,

"this would be funny as a spoof maybe..'

yes indeed, it's not April 1st so the author must be serious.

'runner as usual ignores the extensive evidence for evolution '

yes Foyle and you swallow the fairytale backed up by your imagination.

I always thought that capitalism would be the stepping stone to a more socialist society in the future,Silly me
With capitalism almost killing itself atm what will come next ?

'Also importantly, success was directly proportional to effort.'

Yes, of course. All the employees of all the world's sweatshops (both First and Third World) would agree.

What the author really means is that success is directly proportional to the effort of OTHERS. Or ... that the success of a small few is directly proportional to the effort of the vast majority.

And while I'm here, could somebody please translate this truly weird statement for me:

'If a woman was not careful about the man she married, then he might not come back from the hunt-and everyone died.'

So ... OK. Does he mean that, if she chooses a man who is totally hopeless at hunting, he'll be gored by a wild boar or fall out of a tree or slip on a banana peel or accidentally shoot the other hunters while out on the hunt. And then, not only will the tribe not get anything to eat, all the hunters will be dead.

And it's all that stupid woman's fault, not the stupid man who got everyone killed!

Killarney,
No translation is necessary it's pretty much as you described, it's a weird statement but the whole article is poorly thought out.
Male organisation doesn't work the way the author or outside observers seem to think, I can't explain it properly in print but watch this clip, especially from about 3:25:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szTGXeLk2Jg
There's always a Lieutentant Richard Winters and a Sergeant Frank Percante in every war band or construction crew or ship's company, they even out the effect someone like Private Blythe have on the group and everyone usually makes it home in one piece.

Socialism is an archaic and regressive behaviour.
So is bigotry.

Cooperative, human scale community (including but not limited to, family relations) is the political, social, and cultural root-source of civilization. Cooperative, human-scale community is also the primary political, social, and cultural condition that civilization tends to destroy. Therefore, the struggle to re-establish cooperative, human-scale community - and, in turn, to re-establish (within the larger political, social, and cultural order)the virtues characteristically associated with cooperative, human-scale community - is the constant necessity and the principal political , social, and cultural revolution whereby civilization can be purified of its negative effects, and whereby the integrity of civilization (and of truly civilized people) can be restored.

As civilizations enlarge and universalize themselves, the circumstance of civilized life is progressively removed from the truly human (and humanizing) context of cooperative, human-scale community. Therefore, as civilization expands, the context of human living becomes progressively dissociated from the practices and virtues inherently associated with true (cooperative and human-scale) community, and becomes (instead) progressively individuated, alienated, altogether dehumanized, and (therefore) focused in egoic (and, in general, grossly and negatively, or lovelessly, competitive) efforts toward self-survival and self-aggrandizement.

Whatever the present-time particular, distinguishing characteristics of any civilization may be, the principal characteristics that stand at the root of any civilization (and, therefore, of the present civilization) are those of cooperative, human-scale community itself. And those characteristics are, basically, the political, social, and cultural motives and practices of cooperation, interrelatedness, interdependence, non-competitiveness, true (or positive, rather than merely insipid) harmlessness, and positive (or ego-transcending, and other-serving, rather than merely self-negating) self-sacrifice - and, altogether (and most basically), those characteristics are the political, social, and cultural motives and practices of even all the virtues of self-transcendence (including tolerance, compassion, love, service, and self-discipline.

In the present globally expanded state of civilization, the principal sign of civilization itself is that it has, in the largest number of its sectors, effectively destroyed (or, at least, profoundly minimized) the root-motives, root-practices, and root-virtues of human life in its humanizing (or cooperative, human-scale community) mode - and, indeed, the principal sign of present-time civilization is, in general, that of the absence of cooperative, human-scale (and truly humanizing) community itself.

Therefore, civilization in its present global achievement, is profoundly dissociated from its roots in the relational (or non-separative) virtues and practices inherent in cooperative, human-scale community.

This situation is of course in an "advanced" form in the USA where the adolescent anti-"culture" of competitive individualism is (by far) the dominant paradigm (reinforced by the gun-"culture" and its violence saturated "entertainment".

Not to be outdone Daffy Duck distills the "progressive" mental disorder for us.
Last lines:
I think you'll find the "gun culture" and it's "entertainment" are all creations of the "progressives":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1SZurGArxE

Where do you people live. It sure can't be in the real world.

Both Russia & China starved millions with their socialist economies. People just won't put in enough work for the good of their neighbors or country, if they don't benefit to a greater extent themselves. Both economies failed. Those who day dream of socialism just refuse to recognise facts.

Both Russia & China have only managed to operate successfully by becoming market economies.

How many more failures will it take for you to finally realise it is a failed theory.

Even democracy has the seeds of it's own destruction. Over a period of time an increasing percentage of a democracy realise they can vote for a living, rather than work for it.

The mobs of Rome are an example, as is Europe today, where the lower levels of the society want more for less. The UK today has families where not a single member in 3 generations has ever held a job. Only a no work means no food policy would ever get these people back to work.

If democracies are bound for a slow erosion of the will to contribute, socialist countries do it at the gallop.

Jay

Do you know how I can get that 9 minutes of my time back - the 9 minutes I spent watching your YouTube link to a bunch of dudes running around doing a lot of shouty stuff and blowey-uppy stuff? (Well ... actually, it was more like 4 and a half minutes, as I did a fair bit of FF-ing.)

If there was a point in all of that, then it went right over my head, like the 100,000 or so bullets that ricocheted all over the film, and which probably cost about $50 each to make. No wonder we have to keep putting up the global aged-pension age - boys-will-be-boys wargames are damned expensive.

Judging by the 3,000 plus YouTube comments, reverently nitpicking the subtle nuances between this widow maker and that limb amputator and some other PTSD facilitator, this clip was obviously a sacred bonding experience for global dudery - no dames allowed (they just wouldn't understand).

Hasbeen

'Both Russia & China starved millions with their socialist economies'

Check out the famine histories of both Russia and China. There were heaps of famines in both countries (especially China) before that evil socialism got to them.

You might also like to check out the murky famine history of the British empire. Also, check out the current situation in Britain - More than 900,000 people were given emergency food in the past year, an increase of 163 per cent in just 12 months - a spectacularly shame-inducing situation that all but the most austerity-psychotic of delusional tragics are blaming on the British ruling class's war on welfare to fund austerity measures to bail out the global mess made by the catastrophic cabal of City of London banksters and international greed-geeks (aka capitalism).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/churches-unite-to-act-on-food-poverty-600-leaders-from-all-denominations-demand-government-uturn-on-punitive-benefits-sanctions-9263035.html

Hasbeen, "Where do you people live. It sure can't be in the real world"

It is the Internet.

Don't be silly Killarney.

It is because in the now very socialist UK the yobos all know they can waste all their handout, then come back for a second & a third dip, at other peoples money.

The only thing that saved the place previously was north sea oil. Perhaps fracking can keep it going a little longer, but to save it, they will have to run out of other peoples money, & start to starve.

That would be the only thing that might get their bludgers working, but it is certainly not assured.

I was reading on the Internet that the great public socialist Frank Lowy allegedly made billions in scamming the Facsist insurance companies with his mate Larry Silverstein.

The allegation is that he and Larry planned the whole 9/11 WTC collapse with a few explosive experts, a couple of rogue military aeronautic experts and few nudge nudge wink winks in the right Washington circles.

The story goes that they had insured the WTC heavily and it jackpotted. The windfall has enabled Frank to build malls around the world for the public to enjoy. If true, that is what you call a real socialist.

Like the ABCs Jon Fayne, I am very skeptical and anyone who believes wild allegations like this probably doubts man walked on the moon. I am not sure what one has to do with the other but it sounds like a clever riposte to me.

Sorry, I have to go, just had a military chopper land in my backyard. The officer wishes to search my study for any debris from the ill-fated flight MH370.