Cooperation Is the REAL Human Nature

Many people talk about human nature, saying that competition is “natural,” and that it leads to progress and that the selfishness of capitalism is really natural and acceptable. An important book puts a big hole in that idea, using scientific research into the emotions of animals. And it points out how capitalism has distorted the science for its own reasons by emphasizing competition over cooperation.
Marc Bekoff’s book, The Emotional Lives of Animals, (2007) records anecdotal evidence that most “higher” animals show rich emotional behaviours, more similar than different from the joy, grief and anger of humans. There is a foreword by Jane Goodall, famous for her years of observing primates in their natural habitat. Bekoff’s purpose parallels her work in his description of the interactions of many species. But by far the more interesting conclusion from his work lies in his secondary thesis that cooperation forms the basis for continuation of the species of all social animals.
Distorting Darwin
We have been taught that Darwin’s legacy is survival of the fittest (and from that, the “social Darwinist” theory that the spirit of competition ensures superiority of the wealthy under a profit system). Current capitalist philosophy takes this distortion of Darwin to promote the idea that basic human nature needs to be self-centered to win the race of life. On the contrary, Darwin and many others have observed that most animals are social beings whose collective societies can only survive through mutual aid and co-existence. Bekoff quotes Darwin, “Those communities which included the greatest number of sympathetic members would flourish best and rear the greatest number of offspring.”
In The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin argues that “emotions evolved in both animals and humans for the purpose of furthering social bonds in group-living animals.”  He believed that emotions connected us with the rest of our community and with the rest of the earth. He discussed morality as a natural extension and outgrowth of such social instincts.
As an example, Bekoff’s book cites evidence of parallel “brain-wiring” for cooperation which exists in both animals and man.  A study from The New Scientist, December 2, 2006, reported that in many species of whales — humpback, fin, killer and sperm — spindle cells were found to be in the same area of their brains as human spindle cells.  This brain region is linked with social organization, empathy, intuition about the feelings of others . . . And whales have more of them than humans! (p. xix preface)
The critical nature of social interaction has been documented through observation by Bekoff and others. His fieldwork among coyotes for over seven years in the Grand Teton National Park revealed the importance to survival of group dependence where those yearlings who drifted away from their society suffered a 55% mortality rate, compared to less than 20% for their stay-at-home peers.
Egalitarianism = Survival
Coyotes, as well as many domestic animals, compensate for differences in strength and size during play and close social connections in order to prolong the activity.  They manifest self-handicapping (lying down, exposing their stomach) and role-reversing (when a large animal plays with a much smaller one) to make the interaction more mutual. This “egalitarianism” as Darwin labelled it, is another basis for the survival of species.  
Further, Bekoff says that affiliative behaviour, the egalitarianism of fair play, and shared caring for the young is a precondition for evolution of humans. He concludes that, in the “survival of the fittest” philosophy, cooperation has long been ignored because of the ideological basis of competition. He says the “more we look for cooperation, the more we discover its presence. Animals certainly will compete, but cooperation is central in the evolution of social behaviour, and this alone makes it key for survival.”
The first primitive communist societies of tribes shared resources and cherished the land. Today, billions living in poverty survive by employing collectivity, and fighting back against their exploiters who profit off their misery. History is teaching working people that class struggle for communism is the real key to survival and happiness.