Reading Questions, 3: Marx and Darwin

Here are questions to guide your reading (and to answer for your one-page paper) from your fellow students in Group 1:

1.) Why do Marx and Engels think that the bourgeoisie is a revolutionary class (pg. 127)? Do you agree?

2.) What do Marx and Engels mean when they state that the bourgeoisie produces its own grave diggers (pg. 135)? Do you think that the capitalist system is ultimately doomed to be overthrown by the proletariat?

3.) Read the list of measures needed to move a society toward socialism (pg. 141). Which of these, if any, do you agree with? Why?

4.) In what ways can Darwinism be seen as similar to the theories of capitalism?

5.) In what ways can Darwinism be seen as similar to the theories of communism?

6.) Is the concept of Social Darwinism an inevitable result of Darwinism?

Here, also, are some from me:

7.) Darwin finds "gradeur in this view of life" described by the theory of evolution. But there is also fear: what about his theory might be upsetting for Enlightenment rationalists, or for Romantic nature-worshippers?

8.) Do Marx and Darwin have anything in common? Do they share a view of process in history, or of a certain pattern of transformations over time? If so, what is, roughly speaking, the (r)evolutionary vision they share?