Chapter 5 Agression: Stability and the Selfish Machine

In which Dawkins condemns Communism

This chapter is on aggression. To Dawkins however aggression is a misunderstood term, aggression can really mean any behavior in which two members of the same species are interacting. As one "survival macine" will always be looking for an opportunity to exploit any member of its own species in order to propogate its own genes then there is always a conflict of interest whenever two members of the same species interact. Dawkins explains that to a survival machine any other survival machine is a part of the environment and successful genes are the ones that can make the most use of their environment.
He claims that all species reach an Evolutionary Stable Strategy that cannot be bettered by the individual. For example, the gazelle run when attacked by lions. Maybe if all the gazelles stopped and fought instead they could defeat the lions and be better off but that's impossible because it would have to start with one gazelle deciding to stop and fight and he would be eaten once all of his companions "disappear over the horizon" to use Dawkins vernacular. ESS is, however, not the same as the benefits that could be achieved through group conspiracy. Group conspiracy is impossible because the temptation to take advantage of the group would prove to much for the individual (or actually their genes) and so the exploitationary genes would spread like wildfire through the population. Another strategy would arise and fight back until they once again reached equilibrium. Darkins has some complex mathematics that accompany this theory that I do not care to repeat. In essence Dawkins is saying that Lions dont hunt other Lions because the prospect offends their morality, its simply not a stable strategy. The fellow Lion can fight back far better then the Gazelle and any lions who attempt a cannibalistic strategy would be unable to reproduce and spread their cannibalistic genes.
I remember watching a video of a group of female lions take down a water buffalo with some friends and they all asked, "Why don't they all fight back? They're bigger then the lions!" My response then was that it would have to start with one of them fighting back and if his friends didn't join him then he'd be eaten as well so none of them want to risk it. I guess even then I had the fundamental understanding of ESS and it really does make perfect sense.
To me this all seems like a pretty strong condemnation of Marx's utopia. In a world wide, socialist society the temptation for the individual to exploit the group and not do his fair share of the work would be far too great. They would be able to reproduce copiously, not needing to waste time gathering resources, and their genes for exploiting would spread. Soon there would be so many people exploiting the system that the system would collapse.
Is this not what is happening to a degree in our welfare state? We give payments to people who are too poor to feed their children, we give unemployment to those who don't have jobs. Its true there are many people that don't abuse the system but its undeniable that there are those that do. The stereotypical "welfare queen" has lots of children and then lives off the welfare and unemployment she receives. Dawkins would say that then all of her children, seeing the success of their mothers strategy and the ripeness of the system waiting to be exploited, would then also have children and also live off welfare until the system collapses. Well, isn't that whats happening? How broke has medicare and social security made this country? 60% of our national budget is payment to individuals. Whether or not its moral its clearly not sustainable and thats the greatest difficulty facing our nation. I think its clear that Dawkins is a capitalist.