The Ideological Mobilization of Scientific Ideas by the Ruling Class

Darwin's theory of evolution also provided ideological cover and justification for some of the horrors of the last several centuries in particular eugenics and the genocides which you know existed there. Morgan actually is not giving a 100% linear account of progress here in a way that might undercut some of the more reductive readings you could use of Morgan if you wanted to justify Europe as the ultimate civilization. The emphasis on primitive communism looking back on pre-civilizational societies according to this framework would seem to indicate that there are normatively desirable things that exist in what could be called less advanced societies. Marxism does have a somewhat linear theory of progress wherein for example a capitalist society represents an increase in development