Evolution
Some time ago a fellow biologist, Dr. Mauricio Seigelchifer, published a note comparing the theories of evolution, the disappearance of certain species such as dinosaurs and the impossibility of returning evolutionary processes backwards. He did it to show that Javier Milei’s government could not go against the laws of natural evolution (“Page 12”, 9/12/2025).
I have asked myself if social evolution can be analyzed in the same light, especially taking into account that not only in Argentina, but in other countries such as the United States and Israel, governments carry out experiences that contradict the evolution of the human race. The leaders of each of these countries and their politicians – who express the interests of their capitalist classes -, far from denying it, boast of their reactionary content towards the people of the world.
The American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan, famous for his work “Primitive Society”(1), wrote in it about the evolution of the family gentile organization of the North American aborigines in the 19th century, comparing it with that of the Greeks and Romans. His work became more famous because Federico Engels wrote his work “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”(2), based on the North American anthropologist, where he described how human society was, from tribal organization to the creation of the state, an instrument of exploitation of some classes over others.
In his description of human society, Morgan established three stages of this evolution: “savagery”, “barbarism” and “civilization”, the last stage corresponding to the classical Greco-Roman society that would give rise to the capitalist Western world. According to the Marxist archaeologist Gordon Childe(3), while “savagery” was the era of the Stone Age, “barbarism” was the Bronze and Iron Age, which represented a kind of beginning of society divided into social classes and the State as an institution at the service of some classes against others.
The evolutionary schools in anthropology, archeology and history have seen in the development described, a historical necessity of the steps that human society had to go through until reaching the present global capitalism. Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and their followers, of course, defined and fought to overcome the last capitalist stage, for the creation of a classless society.(4) But the more humanity has evolved in its technological conquests, its social evolution has been regressing in the last hundred years or more, with some exceptions.
Modern Imperialism and the Stone Age
What the leaders of the governments mentioned above (Donald Trump, Javier Milei and Benjamin Netanyahu) have in common is that they ponder the reaction and return to barbarism of the countries and peoples of the so-called Third World. There are other leaders in other parts of the world of the same style such as Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban and others, but we will not talk about them here.
Netanyahu and his government leaders have said they will return the Gaza Strip to the “Stone Age,” and they are really doing it. One of the Israeli ministers even asked to drop the atomic bomb on Gaza and the government is working to expel 2 million Gazans from its territory. They intend to do the same in Lebanon accompanied by the imperialist war co-directed by Trump in Iran.
For these leaders, the “Stone Age” is actually synonymous with total destruction, with converting those territories free of buildings, infrastructure and population. Obviously it is not that they have archaeological knowledge of that time. They don’t care.
A few days ago the newspaper “Haaretz” (4/6/2026) titled an article signed by Jack Khoury: “We are back in the Stone Age: Israel is bombing bridges to isolate southern Lebanon.” In this article you can also see the long quote of Trump’s outbursts about destroying everything and returning to the “Stone Age.” Just one day before the 15-day truce with Iran he said: “Today we will destroy an entire civilization” (New York Times, 4/7/2026), referring to the Persian civilization known for thousands of years by its great kings Cyrus, Darius and Cambyses, who changed the policies of previous empires, for example with religious tolerance towards other peoples such as the Jews.
In the case of the slaughter and destruction of Gaza, it was also at the cost of its own Israeli citizens, the hostages held in the strip (sacrificed in the name of “total triumph”), and the tremendous social and economic costs for the Jewish and Palestinian working population in the area. This barbaric policy has, of course, another objective of displacing the population of the West Bank and attacking the Israeli Arabs themselves. Those who revel in self-imposing the title of “unique democracy in the region” want to see everything around them devastated and ethnic purity as a way of governing in the Middle East beyond the Jordan River and up to the Euphrates, or even beyond, to paragonize a phrase by Vladimir Zeev Jabotinski, the founder of the revisionist Zionist movement, of which Netanyahu is a faithful follower.
Trump approves of destroying Iran and going to the Palestinian “Stone Age” to build his real estate business plans on the Mediterranean coast: “I’m a real estate person at heart and for me location is everything,” he said a few months ago. He added: “Look at this seaside location. Look at this beautiful property. What it could mean to so many people!”(5)
That is, the “Stone Age” is for some; capitalist business is for others.
Furthermore, in his own country, the US president intends to attack his immigrant population, implementing his own policy of deportation of those and asylum seekers in that country. Additionally, it is significantly cutting social service programs and trying to impose restrictions on gay and trans groups; and reduce ecological measures, increasing economic projects that encourage carbon emissions.
Trump has his own expansionist aspirations that include Panama, Greenland and Canada, in addition to his adventures in Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro. All this with the introduction of new low tax rates and exemptions for the rich capitalists in North America and the domination of the world oil market.
The Creole version of Trump, and one of Netanyahu’s few remaining friends, President Milei, has his version of “Going back to the Stone Age” to Argentina with the famous “chainsaw.”
As has been said before, whoever supports massacre and destruction in another part of the world has no problem doing so in his country, that is, the Argentine “chainsaw” would be nothing more than a version of the return to barbarism. Destruction of education, health, retirees and the working classes; the liquidation of natural resources, all this accompanied by a phenomenon that, in the Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, did not exist: institutionalized “bribery.”
Although theft was always the prerogative of the ruling classes and exploiters of their subjects. As Pilar Calveiro said in her recent book: “These lords of chainsaws, bombs and threats try, above all, to guarantee their own survival…”(6)
But the Stone Age was actually the beginning of humanity. There were two great revolutions in it. In the Paleolithic Period (or Old Stone Age) modern man (Homo sapiens) appeared, constituting the first step for our civilization.(7) In the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age) the agricultural revolution occurred that led man to the cultivation of plant species, animal husbandry, society in villages and finally, to the appearance of modern human civilization.(8)
Imperialists and colonialists of all stripes not only have no idea about human history, they are hell-bent on destroying it without any idea of what awaits them. Netanyahu at the expense of the Jewish population itself, because sooner or later the Israelis will be the victim of the reaction of the Arab masses in the area against Israeli colonialism, and while he and his family may manage to flee to Miami, the Jewish masses will pay the bill for the Zionist project.
Socialism or Barbarism
The slogan “Socialism or Barbarism” is today known on the left. Less known is the thought of anthropologist Morgan on the matter. During his visit to Europe he wrote some diaries with certain reflections on society. What he left there was very intelligent, especially for the 1870’s.
“Civilization simply represents the common sense of humanity, the growth and development of centuries… The Roman (Catholic) hierarchy is a mere nest of aristocracy… If society continues to advance it will make the system disappear; but if it does not advance (the system) it will destroy society and make humanity walk again in the direction of barbarism” (9).
Translated into our terms, the true evolution of humanity is to rise up society against the capitalist system; If the leaders of the system take us back thousands of years, the victims of it – the workers, the students, the retirees, the artists, the men and women of the people, of all peoples – must put an end to that system.
Since evolution does not go back, we can only repeat that old saying first expressed by Rosa Luxemburg, who faced imperialism during the First World War under the motto: “Socialism, or barbarism.” While in prison in 1915, Luxemburg wrote an anti-war document, launching for the first time the idea that humanity was faced with the choice between the victory of socialism or the end of civilization.(10)
Today, in the face of the barbarity of imperialist governments and their war, that slogan is more relevant than ever. Down with war, down with capitalist barbarism, for a socialist society that saves humanity.
* Ianir Milevski is an archaeologist, corresponding researcher at Conicet and the German Institute of Archaeology. He was Head of the Prehistory Section of the Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem. He has published more than 200 books and articles on archaeology. Among them, he is the author of the book “Marxist Archeology Today” (2023) and countless specific articles on cultural and archaeological heritage from a socialist point of view.
Grades
(1) Lewis H. Morgan, The Primitive SocietyEd. Ayuso, Madrid, 1975.
(2) chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.marxists.org/espanol/me/1880s/origen/el_origen_de_la_familia.pdf
(3) V. Gordon Childe, The Origins of Civilization, Economic Culture Fund, Mexico City, 1964.
(4)Carlos Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848. https://www.marxists.org/espanol/me/1840s/48-manif.htm
(5) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7mmpljze7o
(6) Pilar Calveiro, Of Killing and Letting Die, 21st century, Bs.As. Mexico City & Madrid, 2025.
(7) Antonio Gilman, Explaining the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, in M. Spriggs (ed.), Marxist Perspectives in ArcheologyCambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984.
(8) See note 4.
(9) Extracted from C. Lisón Tolosana, Prologue, in LH Morgan, The Primitive SocietyEd. Ayuso, Madrid, 1975, p. 26.
(10) The Crisis of German Social Democracy better known as The Junius Brochuretitled by the pseudonym he used, played an important role in the revolutionary opposition to the leadership and reformist Social Democratic Party of Germany.
