| As the political climate in the US progresses towards the 2020 election the question of socialism is ever more prevalent. Despite all the talk about freedom, the American people have never had the opportunity to choose between socialism and capitalism, not unlike countries with a single party, like say China, where there may be elections, but their citizens do not have plurality of choices of parties and candidates. In a similar way, the US citizens have never had any the opportunity to choose something other than capitalism. In the US past elections there has never been plurality or diversity of choices in terms of the economic system from which citizen may choose. In 2016 the one candidate that mentioned the word socialism was blacklisted and all the powers that be did what they needed to do to prevent him from being the Democratic nominee, and thus prevented the American people from having that choice. The debate about socialism or capitalism, or some other third way, is rich and complex and there is little chance it will get a good revision and scrutiny in the US mainstream media. Even when the debate between is properly addressed, the debate focuses on economic, social and political issues. While these are necessary points of the discussion, I think the issues pertaining human nature have been ignored, or mis interpreted. Is there an economic system that best fits human nature? Or the opposite question: Is there an economic model that is incompatible with the very essence of humankind? What does our knowledge of the human species and other socio-biological systems tell us which system is more appropriate, if any? Perhaps there is no absolute answer to these questions, but these issues are highly relevant if we want to build a new political and economic system that does not bring conflict with human nature. While the decision of what system we live under is ultimately a sovereign decision of humankind it will be helpful to understand better our instinctive tendencies. Some positions have argued that socialism is incompatible with human nature because of the inherent selfishness of our species but the issue has not been responsibly analyzed under current evolutionary theory. Often competition is presented as the only rule dictating natural selection, when in actuality evolutionary systems are far more complex. In this essay I explore what Capitalism and Socialism mean and try to reconcile both concepts with our current understanding of human nature under the light of current evolutionary theory. I consider basic Marxist theory, as well as the newer examples of XXI century socialism as models of socialism. The Difference Between Capitalism and Socialism on a Personal level To summarize in a few words, at the personal level capitalism is based on increasing individual gain. Each individual seeks to benefit in any way they can to increase their capital and their standard of living. The individual is the center of activities. Individuals compete with others to benefit themselves as much as possible. The priority of each individual is its own welfare and not the welfare of others. Socialism, on the other hand gives more importance to the interest of the majority over that of the individual. Cooperation with one another is more important than competition. "From each according to his ability and to each according to his need" as Marx famously declared (1). Solidarity and support for each other is the priority within the socialist system. While capitalism maximizes and glorifies selfishness and competition, socialism promotes altruism and cooperation. Human Nature Having clarified that underling difference between the two economic systems we can ask: Is human nature more prone to any of these systems? Is there something in our nature that makes the human being incompatible with any of these economic systems? A superficial answer to this question could lead to an erroneous conclusion. Often the advocates of capitalism claim that human nature is selfish and therefore any attempt at socialism is doomed to failure. However, we delude ourselves to deny the importance of cooperation and solidarity in human societies. A slightly more careful analysis shows that both are present in our daily life as well as in the societies of the past. Pretty much in the decisions we make every day, there is always a complex balance between selfishness and altruism. We can see the most heinous actions among our fellow humans that can only be explained by an extreme selfishness. But we can also see, with approximately the same frequency, evidence of extreme selflessness and devotion to others. Experimental studies show that people become happier when they invest themselves in helping others than when they do things for themselves (2). And it is possible to measure regions of the brain that are more developed in extremely altruistic individuals; which shows that the trait has been modeled by natural selection (3). There are no more people committing extreme acts of self-interest than there are people who commit extreme acts of altruism who in some cases go so far as giving their own life to protect others. Moreover, in all our cultures and traditions, altruistic actions are important and are highly praised and admired while those that commit selfish actions are often reprimanded, or at least not celebrated. These observations, although they can certainly be susceptible to cultural variations, have their origins in the very foundations of our nature. If we explore in more detail, even in capitalist countries where selfish gains are glorified and praised, we see that people continue to perform altruistic actions. It's as if altruism cannot be eradicated from human nature. By the same token, we see that socialist systems which have undergone many decades of education on socialist lifestyle and principles, have had major problems of corruption at different levels. Corruption being, of course, nothing less than selfishness acting out of control at the institutional level. So, it seems that neither selfishness or altruism can be eliminated from human nature regardless of the level of education or indoctrination practiced by society. Human nature seems to be made of these two trends that have apparently opposite directions. The primatologist Frans de Waals expresses it by saying that the human being is a bipolar primate (4). We are as capable of truly outrageous actions taken by the selfishness, hatred and competition, as we are capable of truly dedicated actions driven by altruism, cooperation and love. Theoretical Models Simulation models using game theory predict that internal cooperation within altruistic groups gives them advantage in the competition with other groups. However, if an altruistic group was infiltrated by a selfish individual, this individual would have the advantage over other altruistic members. Clearly, a selfish individual living in an altruistic group would benefit from the sacrifices of the other individuals in the group but because s/he does not contribute to the group, never sacrifices for others, always ends up with an advantage. Thus, if a selfish individual infiltrates an altruistic group, selfish individuals have more offspring than altruistic individuals and eventually the group end up becoming selfish ((5) for full discussion on the subject). Scientists on both sides of the debate have agreed that an altruistic group has competitive advantage over others but for it to remain altruistic there needs to be mechanism to prevent selfish genes from infiltrating the group: There must be a system of monitoring and punishment of individuals that cheat and there must be reciprocity systems that benefit individuals who collaborate with the group. If these conditions are not present, although the group may well be altruistic when it starts, it's just a matter of time before some selfish individual infiltrates the group, or selfish genes appear, and this ends up turning the group into a selfish one. Selfishness Vs. Altruism The biological benefits of selfishness are clearly demonstrated in many species of animals and plants. Individuals seeking their own welfare are more fit and leave more offspring which makes these features become more abundant in the population. However, even Charles Darwin, the original exponent of the theory of natural selection, admitted that the behavior of social insects "lethally wounds" his theory when applied to the individual. Under concepts of individual selection, it's not easy to explain why some social insects (bees, ants, wasps and termites) choose not to reproduce and are ready to sacrifice their lives to defend members of the colony. Darwin argued that selection is not only individual but can also be applied to the group (6). Subsequent studies in this area by William Hamilton (7) have shown that individual selection occurs not only at the individual level but also extends to closely related individuals. A mother that saves her offspring would be acting in their interest to protect the individual copies of genes that are present in the genes of their offspring. This argument also explains the case of social insects that have a high level of relatedness that promote for social cooperation (8). Cooperation in Nature: For altruism among non-relatives to exist, individuals must be able not only to cooperate with each other but also must have a system of reciprocity, where individuals who received assistance repay it later. There must also be a way to detect and punish cheaters, (individuals that do not cooperate with the group but take advantage of it). so that if a selfish individual infiltrates the group, it would not benefit from the group without a corresponding contribution to it. These conditions are difficult to document in many animal species. This may well be because they are not common, or perhaps because of our incapacity to understand their subtle ways of communications and internal dynamics. However, scientists who research animal behavior have documented such behavior in species as diverse as mandrels (9), stickleback (a small fish in temperate waters) (10), bats (11) and chimpanzees (12) among others. Obviously, these features are also present, and are very important in all human societies we know, so there is no reason whatsoever, in biological terms, to deny the possibility for the evolution of cooperative and altruistic behavior in humans. Love and Friendship: The Proximate Reasons When biologists talk about the advantages of cooperation in biological systems whether with bees protecting their sisters, a female protecting her offspring, or a vampire bat feeding another one who is at the brink of starvation, scientists look at the evolutionary reasons that have benefited the animal that makes a sacrifice and have led to these behaviors becoming established in the population. But those are not the reasons that animals act. Bees do not calculate the degree of kinship with their sister when they defend the colony. Nor is a female defending her offspring doing any calculations about her own genes that are present in her offspring. The immediate behavioral reasons, the private experiences, leading the animals to act are very different and are more similar to what we mean by emotions. If a mama bear sees her offspring in danger, she would do anything she has to save her offspring. What leads the mother bear to ignore any danger towards herself? It is difficult for us to understand the feelings of other people and it is much more difficult to understand the feelings that other animals may have. If we could find an equivalent to the feelings that lead a mother bear to attack any enemy, we have to resort to the deepest feelings of maternal love. Notice, however, that the fact that the mother bear defends her offspring moved by love for her offspring does not change the evolutionary reasons for that behavior. The mother bear, who had such feelings of love and saved her offspring left more offspring than bears who did not defend their young. In other words, the biological reasons for the evolution of behavior do not exclude the experiences and feelings that the private individual may have or vice versa. It simply addresses different levels of analysis (13, 14). In fact, the evolutionary reasons behind the behaviors, are often the evolutionary reasons for the development of those feelings of protection to the offspring. Individuals that cooperate and help each other have higher survival but the reason that leads them to cooperate is a feeling of love, and bonding among the individuals. Individuals who cooperate with each other help one another succeed as a group but the internal reason, by which the individuals cooperate are private individual feelings, private experiences (14). When a group of lions cooperate with one another to control a pride, it is true that many of them are close relatives but others simply friends and that bonding within the group is the proximate reason they help and protect each other is because "they like” each other. When a single mother works 12 hours a day so that she can give her children education and support so they may succeed in life, she makes the sacrifices for the love she feels for them. But the evolutionary origin of that love is that mothers with that kind of love for their offspring made the necessary sacrifices for them to survive and be successful. Successful children left more descendants in the later generations. Socialism in the Household Many intellectuals of the political and social sciences refuse to accept the findings of biological systems as applicable to human societies. Although recently this refusal/belief (which is creationist at its roots) has been yielding to the facts and the overwhelming evidence. I will not force a conclusion from theoretical models or non-human animals, discussed in the previous section to the functioning of human societies. Instead, I will explore the functioning of our society for this evidence of altruism. We begin at the simplest level, the family. Although many of us were raised in a capitalist system, a simple review of the dynamics in the home where we grew up shows a fundamentally socialist lifestyle. Consider an old fashion middle-class family in a capitalist system where the husband works out of the house, the wife stays at home caring for the children, and the children go to school and help with the chores around the house when they have finished their homework. In this system, which is undoubtedly familiar to us all, is a socialist system in its dynamics and functioning. Everyone has a role to fulfill and they all benefit from the work of others. The father brings more economically in the present and the mother does a lot more work in the house. The children receive more than they produce, and the parents provide more than they receive. In the future, the parents may count on their children to aid them in their older years. In this household there is an implicit pact for cooperation in the family. If someone does not do his or her share everybody else feels the need and therefore there is social pressure for everyone to do their part. If someone gets sick at home or somehow is missing in the house the others pick up the slack in order to assure that the system continues to work. Everyone contributes according to their ability and receives according to their needs. This corresponds to the principles of a socialist system. If this were a capitalist system, the husband would pay the wife a salary for the house keeping work. The mother and the children would have to pay rent to live in the house and pay for the meals they eat. The children would charge money for washing the dishes, mowing the lawn, and doing chores around the house and use that money to pay for their rent, books, school enrollment and the food they eat. Or else, they would have to ask dad for a loan to cover their education and expenses then pay (with interest) after graduation. This would be the functioning of a capitalist household. The truth is that this system might function just fine, if we set up properly the prices, wages, and payments; but this is just not the way we choose to run our families even in capitalistic societies. The point I are trying to make is if you were not raised in a household where to make a sandwich you had to pay your dad $0.75 for two slices of bread, $1.5 for a slice of ham, $1 for a slice of cheese , $0.5 for two slices of tomato and 0.35 for a tablespoon of mayonnaise, it is clear that you were brought up in a socialist household, although nobody called it so. I have now described the working of a successful middle-class home in a capitalist system. If we look for the description of households with fewer economic resources, we see even stronger evidence of socialism. If the income of one parent is not enough, two go to the streets to work or even older children do the same. Many older children forfeit their education so they can get jobs when they are young to support the loved ones who in turn get a chance to obtain a better education. These are all common practices in human societies around the world and all of them are in line with cooperation and mutual reciprocation and at odds with the selfish philosophy preached in capitalism. Cooperation Beyond Family Evidence of socialism within the family could be explained with the reasoning of Hamilton where helping a family is not very different from selfishness because family members share our genes and helping them helps our own genes survive and thrive indirectly. Is there evidence of spontaneous cooperation in human societies outside the family? Without intending to do a thorough review I will cite some independent evidence of social cooperation in different societies and cultures beyond the family relationship. The ubiquity of such relationships suggests that there may be an inherent tendency of humans to form cooperative, mutually reciprocal relationships predominantly more compatible with the socialist philosophy more than the capitalist one. Mingas in Ecuador: Rural communities in the Ecuadorian Andes practice a form of social cooperation called Mingas. These are social events held regularly or when needed in which the whole community unites to do something that helps the entire community or an individual who is in need. For instance, if there is the need to clear land for cultivation the whole community join together on a given day and clear the land everybody will need for their crops. Or the whole community works together and provides materials and labor to build a house for a family that, say, lost their house in a landslide. This practice is evidence of cooperation within the community with no family ties between the beneficiaries and partners. In Mingas all members of the community are expected to contribute with what they can. All members of the community know that they can also count on the support of the community if (when?) they are the ones that are in need. Native American Indians before European contact: When European settlers arrived in the Americas they focused in taking the wealth and land of the native Indians so the knowledge about their social structure is largely anecdotical. However, there are records that show Arawak Indians in the Caribbean, and Iroquois Tribe in North America, among others, living in predominantly socialist systems where collaboration in these two groups was the rule and competition was limited to some activities but not to gain possession of property (15). At present, many indigenous societies still practice socialist modes of relationship on different levels, despite much pressure from transculturation and external capitalistic pressures and, like the Aymara (see below), have cultural practices consistent with socialist/cooperative systems of living. Aymara Indians of the Bolivian Andes have three commandments that they live by as opposed to the ten of the Christian faith. The first two will not be surprising to anyone familiar with Christianism: Do not lie. Do not steal. The third one bears discussion because it is a requisite for socialism to exist: Do not be lazy. Clearly, if someone does not do their own work, and they live in a collaborative system they will be taking advantage of everyone else (a selfish individual in an altruistic group). So, the Aymara people have set up a strong cultural mandate (a commandment) banning laziness from their ranks. Current Woaoranis: Studies on the relationships of production in the Woaoranis, a recently contacted Amazonian indigenous nation with very little transculturation, the products of the hunt were seen as property of the hunter, but the hunting grounds belonged to the whole nation. Any member of the community may use it for hunting (16). This mirrors perfectly a socialist system as Marx described it. The people may own what they produced but not the means of production. Meaning that persons who grow a crop on a piece of land, may own the crops they produced but they cannot own the land, nor can they sell the land or destroy it with unsustainable practices. For the Woaorani, the hunting grounds are the means of production. Not having private ownership of the means of production is at the corner stone of a socialist system. Churches and religious groups: In the United States, in the very heart of capitalism, we find the Amish community, who practice orthodox observance of the bible and have refused to accept new technologies. They still live in the same simple ways that we used to practice 200 years ago, without using electricity, internal combustion engines or any other technological advances. This group lives in relatively small communities dependent on their own production of vegetables and livestock. When a couple marries and starts a new family the entire community joins to provides materials and labor to build a barn where the new couple can raise their animals and get started in their new life. This system is virtually identical to those of Ecuador Mingas but obviously do not have the same cultural origin. The convergence of these social cooperation systems supports the idea that there is a natural predisposition of humans to cooperate with each other within the community. Looking beyond this community Amish community within the same country, we see that churches across the U.S. (the maximum exponent of capitalism) practice similar selfless practices of helping other people in the community and beyond. United State citizens give millions of dollars to the churches to help unknown individuals. As if the tendency to help others will continue to come up despite all the indoctrination to the contrary that the capitalist superstructure has developed for decades. Ancestral Socialism What is the origin of this pattern of cooperation within communities that always seems to emerge, regardless of culture, or political or economic system? We can seek the origins of our behavior in our evolutionary past. Human beings became so about 2 million years ago and many of the characteristics of our behavior and psychology is still based on the selective pressures and environmental concerns that we had in those days (17, 18). Then we lived in small communities of people living from fishing, hunting and gathering where solidarity and cooperation with one another was key. There was none who did not rely in one way or another on the other individuals in the community. Even the most expert hunters returned empty-handed some days and relied other more fortunate hunters to feed themselves and their families that day. Or they relied on the fruits and roots that other family members may have gathered (19, 20). When the community hunted in groups the cooperation was obviously more important. On other occasions the whole group might depend on an individual (or a few of them) who knew healing herbs, or on elders who knew where to get water in times of drought or special emergencies. All were needed in the group and all contributed to everybody’s welfare. This does not mean that there might not have been internal conflict within the group involving competition and selfishness. But both tendencies always struck a balance that helped the group in general. Cooperation with others was necessary despite selfish tendencies that individuals might have had as all members were interdependent. The group welfare was more important than personal interests because if the group collapsed the separated individuals could not survive alone. Furthermore, when humans lived in small groups they could exercise social oversight for cheats and punish or exclude those who did not contribute their share. This scenario fulfills the requirements of the simulation models that allow the evolution of altruism as a successful strategy. Recent studies document that altruism is adaptive so long as there is punishment for cheaters and the premises of the models are maintained (21). The Origins of Capitalism While the innate tendencies towards selfishness might have been around since the dawn of humankind, they were counterbalanced by other pressures. Individuals were highly dependent on the group as a whole while the food source was unreliable. It is possible that once we controlled agriculture and learned about animal husbandry some individuals became less dependent on the group. Being able to plan and to monopolize the production of food, individuals who were successful could afford to not work with the group as they always had their basics needs covered. Being able to plan production was possible to produce surplus that could be marketed, traded, or accumulated. Reducing the reliance of some individuals in the group, opened the door for selfishness to be expressed more widely. Allowing the selfish individual in the group without contributing to it violates one of the conditions for maintaining an altruistic group. Selfish individuals benefit from the group without contributing to it and eventually make it a selfish group. This may have been an early result of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals approximately 15,000 years ago. What would Marx say? An orthodox Marxist could easily have an aneurysm by reading these lines. Under classic Marxist theory, capitalism appears after feudalism as mode of production. At the end of capitalism, then socialism is expected to appear as a more advanced mode of production. This notion presents socialism as more advanced building on the previous systems. The thesis I present here does not necessarily contradict Marx’s thinking but talks about a different time scale. Marx time frame was referred to the last couple thousand years while the thesis presented here refers to the last two million years. If this thesis is correct, the original social system of human beings was essentially a socialist system where selfish tendencies were kept in check by the needs of the individuals to cooperate. Selfishness that motorizes capitalism could not express itself until the beginning of agriculture. Capitalism did not begin as such, but the seeds of capitalism (the prevalence of selfishness and personal interests above the common interest) began to germinate then. It took several thousand years before the capitalism (sensus Marx) appeared, but its foundations appeared much earlier. The real conflict that appears in the difference between the orthodox Marxist claim that capitalism predates socialism and this thesis posits that human beings first evolved in a socialist-like system. From a biological point of view primitive or ancient does not mean "worse" and newer or derivative does not mean "better." Both are systems that can evolve depending on the selective pressures that are applied. Where selfishness and competition, prevails, capitalism evolves as the most successful system. On the other hand, if the selective pressures are cooperation and altruism then socialism evolves as the most fit system. Just like evolution of biological species, no system is ever static, and they are always changing depending on the pressures applied to the system (22). What about corruption? A common plague that both systems have struggled with over the decades is corruption. By definition corruption is selfishness gone out of control. The corrupt person takes advantage of the system for their own gain, despite the damage it may do to others in the group. Because of this, corruption is expected to exist naturally and intrinsically with capitalism. Yet even within capitalism out of control selfishness may damage the system itself. This why there are regulations and rules to prevent selfishness from taking over. Corruption within capitalism is a failure of regulations (or enforcement). The situation in socialism is different. The system is based on cooperation and mutual help. There is no place for corruption in a socialist system that is working properly. This is not to say that real life examples of socialism have not (and do not) struggle with corruption. The old Soviet Union suffered of it, and likely it was part of its downfall. This is certainly one of the main problems that Venezuela struggles with now-a-days. So why is there corruption in socialist systems if socialism is based in cooperation and not selfishness? The answer is simple. In socialism corruption results from a failure in ideology. Those who succumb to corruption in socialist system are individuals who have not embraced the cooperative philosophy of the system. Remember that an altruistic group infiltrated by a selfish individual and left unchecked is doomed. One challenge for any system that endeavors a socialist approach must be aware that a transformation towards socialism, cannot be made with a simple redistribution of income, or even redistribution of wealth, there has to be a more profound redesigning of the way people see society and their role in it, specifically the proper balance between selfishness and cooperation. The "End of History" When the Soviet Union fell those in behalf of the capitalist model, were quick to declare the "end of history" declaring the death of socialism for once and for all (23). Looking at the world today it is clear that it was not true. Socialism survived in some countries like Cuba, and now, as worldwide capitalism stumbles and fails, socialism has re-emerged with new momentum spreading through Latin America and even challenging the dominant system in the US. Marxist thinking, on the other hand predicts a different “end of history.” Under Marxist theory, socialism is not a final state of economic relationship. Rather it is a process of change that different countries embark on when their own capitalist systems collapse. These are processes of change, controversy and struggles while the original selfish capitalist system struggle to return and the people try to move away to an egalitarian system based on cooperation. After all countries have undergone their own socialist transformation and they have established stable socialist processes, the whole planet may join into a final planetary economic system where there is no exploitation of “man by man”. This is partially what we have witness with the transformation of Russia and more recently with countries like Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina who had started socialist processed and now have reverted back to capitalism. Economic systems are dynamic entities that constantly change according to simple rules that lead to the gradual changes in the same way that natural selection continue changing species. In a manner, systems are constantly evolving (22). The application of market rules and principles of self-interest led the original system of egalitarian cooperation to evolve into slave, feudal, and finally to the capitalist system. The application of different rules to the system, such as social justice and cooperation would lead the system to a socialism (22). But if the system that has undergone a social revolution, such as in Russia, it is subjected to the pressure of selfishness and competition, a blooming capitalist system may evolve in rather short time. After decades of Marx style socialism Russia is today one of the most capitalistic countries in the world; if we judge by the distribution of wealth, the income gap between the rich and the poor, and the distribution of social services such as education, health care etc. Something similar may be said about China, that has turned into some sort of State Capitalism, and also is developing into a consumerist power to compete with the US herself. I argue elsewhere that the only way to truly save human kind and the environment is by developing a system that embraces fairness and cooperation both in space and time (24). Redistribution of Wealth or redistribution of Income: Towards the end of the 1990s and early 2000s a new brand of socialism was launched. Starting with Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez but extending throughout Latin America, country after country, veering away from neoliberal policies that were strangling their people. Those countries began to embrace more or less openly socialist policies and rhetoric. These were not Soviet style versions of socialism, or even Cuban style socialism. These were democratic processes that started via different ways but all of them had something in common: People were more important than money. To that extent they departed drastically from the standard capitalist model, but they were also substantially different from Marxist-Leninist process that we had seen. One of the corner stones of a classic socialist system is that the means of production (land, factories, anything people need to produce commodities) cannot be left to private hands. If the means of production is left in the hands of the few, they will end up owning and ruling the government for their own self-interest. This truth is painfully obvious when we look how the wealthy elite in the at United State have highjacked all branches of government. The Marxist solution for this conundrum is not via campaign election reform but by preventing any individual for monopolizing the means of production and becoming so wealthy that they can buy and own all politicians. Also, if nobody owns, say a gun factory, nobody will be interested in bribing politicians to oppose gun control, because gun control would not hurt the economic interest of anybody. Thus, a socialist system (sensus Marx) would take over the means of production and either spread it among the people or the State itself will take it over and administer it to serve the people. A socialist government may take over a big latifundia estates and break it apart in small pieces of land to give it to individual farmers. They will be able to use the land and will own the crops the grow in it but they will not own the land per se. Or, it may take over a factory and give it to the workers to manage allowing them to benefit from the fruit of their labor. The worker will own the commodities that they make in the factory (t-shirt, hammer, pencils, etc) and they can sell them as they please, but they will not own the factory itself. Thus, a classical Marxist system redistributing the means of production in a manner to prevent its private ownership; thus redistributing the wealth of the nation. This is not the path that XXI century socialism (so-named by former President Hugo Chavez) has taken. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela experimented with this model early on, but it did not work so well. Some big latifundia estates were taken and given to farmers but mostly due to corruption in management, these policies did not produce the desired benefit (25). Most of the transformation that took place in Venezuela as well as other countries that embraced XXI Century Socialism have done is substantial redistribution of income. They have worked to substantially increase wages, improving worker conditions, provide free health care, free university education, and comprehensive social programs including subsidized housing, and many more policies to increase the quality of life for the citizens. The idea was that people are more important than capital but allowing private ownership of the means of production; resulting in no redistribution of wealth. In this sense, their approach is not that different from the democratic socialism, that some public figures have endorsed in the US. An orthodox Marxist would not consider it socialism at all. The different countries that have embraced XXI Century Socialism have all converged in similar policies although not following necessarily the same “playbook”. Basically, all these countries have redefined their particular politics basing their actions in democratic principles, human rights and cooperation resulting in very similar policies. The spirit of this continent-wide movement is best caught by Chávez’s words: “Amor con amor se paga” (Love can only be repaid with love); expressing unambiguously the nature of the movement. It is important to analyze the different processes of XXI Century Socialism because they come from the most diverse backgrounds. Some of them were led by: Chávez, a former military commander in Venezuela, labor leaders like Morales and Lula in Bolivia and Brazil respectively, Zelaya, a wealthy cattle rancher in Honduras, Lugo a former priest in Paraguay, Rafael Correa, a Ph.D. Yale graduate, economist and former President of Ecuador, former guerrilla fighters like Uruguay’s Mujica and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and the Kirchners, seasoned, lifelong politicians in Argentina. Diverse as all these processes were, they had a thing in common: they embraced the notion that people are more important than money. Many of these leaders did not openly call themselves socialist but all of them rejected capitalist models their countries had been embracing. They engaged in substantial redistribution of income and they chose a cooperation-based model of government over the competitive model. Many of these processes have come under attack internationally by the US economic elites; that for some reason fear that the people may even consider a different ideology than capitalism. By the early years of Chávez presidency alone, US taxpayers had spent tens of millions of dollars in attempts trying to topple him (26). By now, the bill probably exceeds hundreds of millions of dollars if we consider in all the money invested in regime change in Latin America in the last two decades. All this is important to consider as we seek to determine what systems work best for humankind within our evolved human nature. It is critical to see how resilient cooperation-based movements are and how hard the people fight to keep them alive, even against powerful the external pressure. Despite how difficult economic embargo has made life in Cuba and Venezuela, their citizens still hold fast to their system over the old capitalist system they left behind (27) and those where the socialist process has been stalled by non-democratic means fight to restore it (28) (29). Needless to say, using taxpayers money to erode foreign economic systems is deeply at odds with the nature of capitalism. In a sensus strictus capitalist system the law of supply and demand dictates all transactions. Using economic sanctions and businesses as weapons against political enemies is an insult to the free market economy and capitalistic ideology. Yet, all attempts to develop a socialist system need to contend with the ever-present United State political and economic elite using all the US powers and influence to destroy it. Perhaps the only way we will see a socialist system truly thrive and develop its full potential will be when it replaces the capitalist model in the US itself. Then socialist systems of governance and perhaps even other economic-political models and processes around the world will be able to develop and tell us what the “end of history” really will be. References 1. K. Marx. (1875), pp. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm. 2. E. W. Dunn, L. B. Aknin, M. I. Norton, Science 319, 1687 (2008). 3. A. A. Marsh et al., Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 15036 (2014). 4. F. De Waal, Our Inner Ape. London. (Penguin Books ltd, 2005). 5. D. S. Wilson, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 14, 159 (1983). 6. C. Darwin, On the Origin of the Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. (John Murray, Albemarle Street London, 1859). 7. W. D. Hamilton, Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, 1 (1964). 8. E. O. 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Short Biography: Jesús Rivas was born in Venezuela and studied biology at Universidad Central de Venezuela. After getting a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, he worked for National Geographic Television as a Field on-air correspondent for several years. He has studied Ecology and Conservation through Latin America for over more than two decades. Currently Jesús is a Professor of Biology at New Mexico Highlands University where he teaches Conservation Biology and Evolution of behavior both, in Animals and Humans. |