Evolution quotes: Socialism 9 May 20129 May 2012 To the biologist the problem of socialism appears largely as a problem of size. The extreme socialists desire to run every nation as a single business concern. I do not suppose that Henry Ford would find much difficulty in running Andorra or Luxembourg on a socialistic basis. He has already more men on his pay-roll than their population. It is conceivable that a syndicate of Fords, if we could find them, would make Belgium Ltd or Denmark Inc. pay their way. But while nationalization of certain industries is an obvious possibility in the largest of states, I find it no easier to picture a completely socialized British Empire or United States than an elephant turning somersaults or a hippopotamus jumping a hedge. [J. B. S. Haldane, “On Being the Right Size” 1928] Evolution Politics Quotes
Censorship Revisionist historian walks free, rightly so 21 Nov 2008 Frederick Toben is an awful man, who denies the plain fact that the Nazis killed six million Jews and between nine and eleven million Jews, Slavs, Romany, homosexuals, Soviets (civilians and POWs), Poles, disabled, and so on. But what he thinks is not a crime, either in Australia, where he… Read More
Evolution Liveblogging the conference: Piotrowski 14 Mar 2008 Monica Piotrowski (Utah) also is talking about DNA Barcoding. She starts with a child’s coin sorter. Imagine that it’s a bug-sorter, sorting by DNA samples. What does the child now have? She claims Barcoders must have a species concept to measure the success of their practice. They have none, and… Read More
Politics The hate that dare not speak its name 18 Sep 2009 It’s self-evident that a movement that calls the president a lying, socialist, Nazi eugenicist with a fake birth certificate is about something more than deficit spending. People don’t brandish automatic weapons and pray for the president’s death because they want to keep their employer-sponsored health plans. But to name the… Read More
” I find it no easier to picture a completely socialized British Empire or United States than an elephant turning somersaults or a hippopotamus jumping a hedge.” Or a completely socialized — and prosperous — Soviet Union or China.
Very slick piece of writing. The introduction to this brings the point vividly and dramatical to life. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7166801834924005619
…I’m not sure that the question of whether political/economic systems “work” is a biological question (or “problem”), unless many (many, many, many) parameters can first be defined in biological terms (jumping ability of elephants, for example). Unless, of course, all problems are biological problems.
Yes these mad Marxist scientist and their strange theories, as any sane historian would note the first question to ask is one of context.
Nice strawman in those ‘extreme socialists’ Haldane conjured up for us. What’s next, posts on how ‘extreme facists’ have it all wrong?
In 1928, this was indeed a concern. If he made comments about fascists of any stripe in 1928, I would say he was unduly prescient.