Eugenics and the Left
Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 45, n° 4, 1984 EUGENICS AND THE LEFT BY DIANE PAUL Introduction. -"The dogma of human equality is no part of Com- munism . the formula of Communism: 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs', would be nonsense, if abilities were equal."' So asserted J.B.S. Haldane, the distinguished Marxist ge- neticist, in the Daily Worker of November 14, 1949. Even at the height of the Lysenko controversy-and writing in the newspaper of the British Communist Party (on whose editorial board he served)-Haldane refused to retreat from the positions regarding the existence of innate human inequalities and the value of a socially responsible eugenics with which he had been associated since the 1920s. Indeed, Haldane would maintain these views, in only slightly modulated form, until his death in 1964.2 If Haldane's opinions were sui generis, they would be of only minor interest. But far from expressing views that were unique Haldane's linked beliefs in socialism, inequality, and eugenics were widely shared on the left, particularly amongst Marxists and Fabians with scientific interests. Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, Havelock Ellis, Eden and Cedar Paul, H.J. Laski, Graham Wallas, Emma Goldman, H.G. Wells, Edward Aveling, Julian Huxley, Joseph Needham, C.P. Snow, H.G. Muller and Paul Kammerer-to note just some of the more prom- inent figures-all advocated (though in varying forms; some "positive" J.B.S. Haldane, "Darwin on Slavery," Daily Worker (London), Nov. 14, 1949. "I think the world would be a much duller place if there were no differences in innate powers between the different individuals and groups of individuals .
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