Why G. A. Cohen Can't Appeal to Charles Darwin to Help Him Defend Karl Marx (But Why Others Can)

Abstract

A standard criticism of Cohen's account of historical materialism holds that, in the absence of an elaboration or mechanism, the consequence explanations that connect changes in economic structures (and superstructures) to productive development are less convincing than they could be (and perhaps need to be). Such an elaboration would show how the propensity of specific relations of production to enhance productive power could explain the spread of those relations, and thus changes in economic structures. Cohen provides such a mechanism in his rational-choice case for the explanatory primacy of productive forces over relations of production. This proposal, however, makes unreasonably strong assumptions concerning human knowledge and questionable empirical claims. By contrast, a Darwinian mechanism for historical materialism, which offers an alternative account of the explanatory primacy of productive power, is possible. This revision to the foundations of historical materialism has important implications for the way we conceive of both historical materialism and human history.