2689. Human Nature and Socialism, Part 3. Robert Sapolsky on Human Behavior

By Kamran Nayeri, June 7, 2026

Robert Sapolsky

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1957, Robert Morris Sapolsky is an American neuroscientist and primatologist. As John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, he is a professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery. Sapolsky's research has focused on neuroendocrinology, particularly relating to stress. He is also a research associate with the National Museums of Kenya.

In what follows, I will outline Sapolsky’s grand synthesis of neuroscience, endocrinology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and primatology as presented in his books Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (2018) and Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (2023). His central argument is that no human behavior can be understood by looking at a single cause. Instead, every action is the outcome of a long causal chain extending from seconds before the act to millions of years of evolution.

Behave: Why humans do what they do

This 790-page book extensively discusses neurobiological foundations of human behavior, explaining how brain activity, particularly in the limbic and frontal cortex systems, dictates responses moments before an action is taken. It highlights the role of the triune brain model in processing everything from basic survival instincts to complex decision-making.

Sapolsky’s methodology is distinctive because it is neither purely neuroscientific nor purely sociological. Instead, Sapolsky develops what might be called a multi-level, historical-causal analysis of behavior.

His central methodological question is: What caused a particular behavior to occur at a particular moment?

To answer this, he works backward in time, examining layers of causation that extend from seconds before an action to millions of years before it.

The "Backward-in-Time" Method

Sapolsky begins with a specific behavior--for example, an act of aggression, altruism, cooperation, or prejudice—and asks what caused it. He then analyzes successively larger temporal scales:

First stage. One second before the behavior

What was happening in the brain?

• Neural circuits
• Amygdala activity
• Prefrontal cortex regulation
• Neurotransmitters

This is the immediate neurobiological explanation.

Second stage. Seconds to minutes before

What stimuli triggered the brain?

• Visual signals
• Sounds
• Social cues
• Threats or rewards

Behavior is seen as a response to environmental information processed by the nervous system.

Third stage. Hours to days before

What hormonal conditions existed?

• Cortisol
• Testosterone
• Oxytocin
• Dopamine

Hormones alter how the brain responds to stimuli.

Fourth stage. Months to years before

What developmental experiences shaped the individual?

• Childhood experiences
• Trauma
• Attachment
• Learning
• Socialization

The nervous system itself has been molded by prior experience.

Fifth stage. Genetic and epigenetic influences

What predispositions exist?

• Genes affecting temperament
• Gene-environment interactions
• Epigenetic modifications

Importantly, Sapolsky rejects genetic determinism. Genes influence probabilities, not fixed outcomes.

Sixth stage. Cultural influences

What social world shaped the person?

• Norms
• Institutions
• Religion
• Economic systems
• Political structures

Culture becomes a causal force in behavior.

Seventh stage. Evolutionary history

Why does our species possess these capacities at all?

• Evolution of cooperation
• Group identity
• Dominance hierarchies
• Empathy
• Aggression

Here Sapolsky draws on primatology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology.

Some conclusions

The following are some of the conclusions Sapolsky draws in Behave.

A. The nature-versus-nurture debate is largely obsolete

Sapolsky concludes that genes and environment are inseparable. Genes influence how organisms respond to environments, while environments influence how genes are expressed through developmental and epigenetic processes.

Thus, human behavior is always the product of gene-environment interaction.

B. The brain is highly plastic

Another major conclusion is that human brains are not fixed. Experience alters neural connections, emotional responses, cognitive capacities, stress systems, and even gene expression.

This means that neither virtue nor violence is permanently built into human beings.

C. Humans possess capacities for both extraordinary cruelty and extraordinary cooperation

Sapolsky rejects theories that portray humans as either naturally selfish or naturally good.

Humans have evolved capacities for aggression, domination, tribalism, and xenophobia,  but also, for empathy, cooperation, altruism, and reconciliation.

Both tendencies are deeply rooted in our biology.

D. Context matters enormously

A recurring conclusion throughout Behave is that behavior changes dramatically depending on circumstances.

People who behave compassionately in one context may behave cruelly in another.

Situational factors can often outweigh stable personality traits.

This insight draws partly from classic social psychology experiments and partly from neuroscience.

E. Tribalism is natural but not fixed

Sapolsky concludes that humans have evolved tendencies to divide the world into “us” and “them.” However, he emphasizes that group boundaries are remarkably flexible. People can rapidly redefine who belongs to "us." For Sapolsky, this flexibility provides grounds for optimism.

The same biological mechanisms that produce prejudice can also support broader forms of solidarity.

F. Social inequality has biological consequences

One of Sapolsky's longstanding research interests concerns stress and hierarchy. He concludes that chronic inequality, subordination, and insecurity produce measurable biological effects on health and behavior.

The social environment literally becomes embodied.This links social structures to biological outcomes.

G. Moral behavior depends heavily on social conditions

Sapolsky repeatedly argues that if societies wish to encourage cooperation, tolerance, and empathy it should create institutions and environments that support those behaviors. He is skeptical of explanations that focus solely on individual moral character. Instead, he emphasizes the importance of social arrangements.

H. Traditional notions of free will are deeply problematic

This conclusion becomes even more explicit in his later book, Determined, but its foundations are already present in Behave.

Sapolsky argues that every action arises from prior causes: genes, fetal development, childhood, culture, brain states, immediate circumstances.

As a result, he questions whether people could ever have acted independently of those causes. This does not mean behavior is random; rather, it is caused by factors beyond conscious control.

I. Understanding causation should increase compassion

This is perhaps the ethical conclusion that runs through the entire book. Sapolsky believes that understanding the causes of behavior should make us less self-righteous, less punitive, more empathetic. If behavior arises from biological and social histories that individuals did not choose, then moral judgment should be tempered by such understanding.

Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will

In this 511-page book, Robert Sapolsky takes the argument implicit in Behave to its logical conclusion: human beings do not possess free will in the traditional sense.

However, the book is not merely a philosophical argument. Sapolsky attempts to synthesize findings from neuroscience, genetics, endocrinology, psychology, developmental biology, and social science to show that every human action arises from causes that precede conscious choice.

His central thesis can be summarized as follows: A person could not have acted differently from how they acted, because every factor that produced the action was itself caused by prior factors over which the person had no control.

Sapolsky asks what caused a decision at a particular moment. As in Behave, he works backward to find the causal chain for the decision. He argues that at no point do we encounter an independent "chooser" standing outside this causal chain. Instead, we find only more causes.

The core claim

Sapolsky rejects what philosophers often call libertarian free will—the idea that a person could have genuinely chosen otherwise under exactly the same conditions.

He argues that every thought emerges from brain activity. Brain activity arises from prior physical and biological causes. Those causes arise from earlier biological, environmental, social and historical causes. Therefore, no action is ultimately self-created.

The traditional image of autonomous self-making uncaused choices is, in his view, an illusion.

What about conscious choice? Sapolsky does not deny that people deliberate. We weigh alternatives, reflect, and make plans. However, he argues that the mechanisms that generate preferences, desires, values, motivations, and reasoning styles, were themselves produced by prior causes. Thus, while conscious deliberation is real, it is not evidence for free will. The deliberative process is itself part of the causal chain.

Sapolsky draws on several sources of evidence.

Neuroscience: Experiments often show measurable brain activity precedes conscious awareness of decisions. The brain appears to begin preparing actions before people report deciding.

Genetics and Development: Temperament, impulse control, risk-taking, and emotional regulation are influenced by genes, prenatal conditions, and childhood experiences.  Individuals do not choose these starting points.

Social Environment: Economic conditions, education, trauma, discrimination, and profoundly shape behavior. People inherit social circumstances rather than choosing them.

Some people argue that quantum indeterminacy or randomness creates freedom. Sapolsky rejects this. A random event is not a free choice. Randomness may undermine strict determinism, but it does not create an autonomous will.

Implications for morality

This is where Sapolsky becomes most controversial. He argues that if free will does not exist, then traditional notions of moral blameworthiness become difficult to defend. No one chooses their genes, their prenatal environment, or their childhood circumstances. If behavior emerges from factors beyond personal control, then punishment justified by retribution becomes questionable.

Sapolsky does not argue for abolishing laws, courts, or prisons. Instead, he proposes a more pragmatic approach. Society may need to restrain dangerous individuals, protect the public, and rehabilitate offenders, but should do so without the belief that offenders freely choose their character.

He often compares this to dealing with a dangerous disease. Society protects itself but without hatred or moral condemnation.

A major ethical conclusion of the book is that abandoning free will should increase compassion.

When we understand how behavior is shaped by biology, history, culture, and social conditions, we become less inclined toward self-righteousness and vengeance.

For Sapolsky, understanding causation should foster empathy.

Major Criticisms

The book has attracted much praise but also some criticism from philosophers and some scientists. Common objections include:

Philosophical view of free will: many philosophers do not believe free will requires an uncaused soul or independent self. Instead, they defend compatibilism, the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent even in a causally determined world.

Sapolsky largely rejects this position.

References:

Sapolsky, Robert. Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. 2018. 

____________.  Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will. 2023. 

3688. Human Nature and Socialism, Part 2. Gregory Bateson’s Ecology of Mind

By Kamran Nayeri, June 4, 2026 

Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson (1904 – 1980) was an English American anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected with many other fields. “His contributions range from evolutionary theory to epistemology to clinical psychology and psychiatry to anthropology to learning and communication. His approach was decidedly multidisciplinary (Montuori, 2002).” 

What got Bateson on the path to what he later called “ecology of mind was what he confronted in his teaching:

“I have taught various branches of behavioral biology and cultural anthropology to American students ranging from college freshmen to psychiatric residents, in various schools and teaching hospitals, and I have encountered a very strange gap in their thinking that springs from a lack of certain tools of thought. This lack is rather equally distributed at all levels of education, among students of both sexes, and among humanities as well as scientists. Specifically, it is a lack of knowledge of the presuppositions not only of science but of everyday life (Bateson, 2002, p. 23).”

Bateson’s interest led him to develop a methodology for piecing together information gleaned from various fields into new patterns of knowledge. 

“At present, there is no existing science whose interest is the combining of pieces of information. But I shall argue that the evolutionary process must depend upon such double increments of information. Every evolutionary step is an addition of information to an already existing system. Because it is so, the combinations, harmonies, and discords between successive pieces and layers of information will present many problems of survival and determine many directions of change (Bateson, 2002, p. 19).”

In this essay, I will focus on Bateson’s concept of the ecology of mind, which evolved over time in his writing, as expressed especially in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind and Nature (1979). Cybernetics and systems theory played a central role in his ecology of mind.  Cybernetics is the study of systems, control, and communication in animals and machines. It explores feedback loops, which are essential for system regulation and adaptation; examines the role of information flow in maintaining system stability and functionality; analyzes interactions among components within a system to understand emergent behaviors; and investigates the application of cybernetics across fields such as biology, engineering, and the social sciences.

Bateson’s theory of ecology of mind

Gregory Bateson’s core thesis is that the mind is not an isolated substance or faculty inside individuals’ brains, but a relational, cybernetic process distributed across organisms and their environments.

Mind is a process that emerges from networks of relationships among organisms and their environments. Human beings, other living beings, and ecosystems are linked through flows of information. The mind is a system of relationships; it is not a “thing” but a process. He defined a mental system as one in which differences are perceived. Differences are transformed into information. Information affects future behavior. Feedback loops connect the parts of the system. A forest, a family, an ecosystem, or even a society can therefore exhibit mental characteristics because they process information through interconnected feedback relationships. This means no organism can be understood apart from the ecological system in which it exists.

Information is "a difference that makes a difference." A difference becomes information when it affects a system's behavior. For example, changes in temperature affect a plant; a predator's movement affects prey; a spoken word affects a listener.

Mind therefore operates through the communication of differences rather than through material substances alone.

Epistemological errors arise when we fragment this systemic whole into linear cause–effect chains or oppose self and world.

Bateson’s theory has resulted in debates about systems thinking, constructivist epistemology, and ecological ethics.

Bateson believed modern industrial civilization suffers from a profound epistemological error. Western thought often separates mind from nature, humans from ecosystems, and subject from object.

Bateson argued that these separations are largely illusions. Humans are components of larger ecological systems, not masters standing outside them. When people act as if they are separate from nature, they damage the ecological systems upon which they depend.

Feedback and self-regulation

Ecological systems survive through feedback loops. Examples include predator-prey relationships, body temperature regulation, family interactions, and ecosystem nutrient cycles. Healthy systems contain balancing feedback that prevents runaway growth or collapse.

Many social and ecological crises arise when these feedback mechanisms are disrupted.

ُُSpecies co-evolve within networks of relationships; Organisms shape environments; Environments shape organisms. 

The sacred unity of life

In his later work, Bateson increasingly emphasized what he called the "pattern which connects," referring to the recurring relational structures found throughout living systems: Examples: cells and organisms; organisms and ecosystems; individuals and societies

He believed wisdom consists in recognizing these patterns rather than focusing only on isolated entities.

At the same time, Bateson’s view of the function of consciousness “in coupling between man and the homeostatic systems around him” is as follows:

“First, there is man’s habit of changing his environment rather than changing himself. …In evolutionary history, the great majority of steps have been changes within the organism itself; some steps have been of an intermediate kind in which the organism achieved change of environment by change of locale. In a few cases, organisms other than man have created modified microenvironments around themselves, e.g., the nests of hymenoptera and birds, concentrated forests of conifers, fungal colonies, etc.

“In all such cases, the logic of evolutionary progress is toward ecosystems which sustain only the dominant, environment-controlling species, and its symbionts and parasites.

“Man, the outstanding modifier of environment, similarly achieves single-species ecosystems and parasites in his cities, but he goes one step further, establishing special environment for his symbionts. These, likewise, become single-species ecosystems: fields of corn, cultures of bacteria, batteries of fowls, colonies of laboratory rats, and the like. 

“Secondly, the power ratio between purposive consciousness and the environment has rapidly changed in the last one hundred years, and the rate of change in the ratio is certainly rapidly increasing with technological advances. Conscious man, as a changer of the environment, is now fully able to wreck himself and the environment—with the very best conscious intentions.

 “Third, a peculiar sociological phenomenon has arisen in the last one hundred years which perhaps threatens to isolate conscious purpose from many corrective processes which might come out of less conscious parts of the mind. The social scene is nowadays characterized by the existence of a large number of self-maximizing entities which, in law, have something like the status of ‘persons’-trusts, companies, political parties, unions, commercial and financial agencies, nations, and the like. In biological fact, these entities are precisely not persons and not even aggregates of whole persons. They are aggregates of parts of persons (Bateson, 2002, p. 451-452).”

Batson then notes several factors “which may act as correctives.” They include love, by which he means “I-Thou” relationship “between man and his society or ecosystem,” and the formation of “sensitivity groups,” arts, poetry, music, and the humanities, where “more of the mind is active than consciousness would admit.” He adds contact between “man and animals and between man and the natural world,” which “breeds, perhaps—sometimes—wisdom (ibid., p. 453). He includes religion to which I will come back again.

Ecological implications

Bateson's ecological philosophy differs from both mechanistic materialism, which often treats nature as an object, and spiritual views that separate mind from the material world. Instead, he proposed a relational ontology in which the mind is immanent in ecological relationships. Human beings are part of larger living systems, and survival depends on maintaining the integrity of these systems.

The fundamental reality is not isolated things but relationships, patterns, and information flows. Human survival depends on recognizing that the true unit of life is the organism-in-its-ecosystem.

The survival unit

While Freudian psychology expanded the concept of the mind inwards to include the whole communication system within the body, the automatic, the habitual, and the vast range of unconscious processes, Bateson “expands mind outwards. And both these changes reduce the scope of the conscious self.

“We get a picture, then, of mind as synonymous with cybernetic system—the relevant total information-processing, trial-and-error completing unit. And we know that within Mind in the widest sense, there will be a hierarchy of subsystems, any one of which we call an individual mind. 

“But this picture is precisely the same as the picture which I arrived at in discussing the unit of evolution. I believe that this identity is the most important generalization which I have to offer you tonight…

“This identity between the unit of mind and the unit of evolutionary survival is of very of great importance, not only theoretical but also ethical. (ibid., p. 466).” 

Let’s get back to religion for a moment. Bateson argues that if

“You put God outside and set him vis-à-vis his creation, and if you have the idea that you are created in his image, you will logically and naturally see yourself as outside against the things around you. And as you arrogate all mind to yourself, you will see the world as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical considerations. The environment will seem to be yours to exploit. Your survival unit will be you and your folks or conspecifics against the environment of other social units, other races, brutes, and vegetables.

If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell (ibid., p. 488, my emphasis).”

This is why Bateson has been influential in ecology, systems theory, cybernetics, family therapy, and environmental philosophy.

Critique of Bateson’s theory

From the perspective of a theory of human nature and socialism, it is evident that a cybernetic approach to human society operates at a higher degree of generality and lacks any specific theory of society and history, unlike Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx.  However, he complements such theories of society and history with a grand overall view that offers significant advantages. To begin with, although Bateson does not explicitly discuss his ontology, it is evident that he held a philosophy of being, existence, and reality that is materialist and immanently relational. As I underscored in Part 1 of this essay, even Marx’s historical materialism was constructed by limiting human nature, society, and history to social relations arising from modes of production and ensuing class struggles. Of course, Marx and Engels admitted this fundamental shortcoming but never returned to the task of placing humanity within nature, to which it is bound by natural history. A key exception is Marx’s concept of the metabolic rift, which originated in his critique of capitalist agriculture, which destroyed the metabolic relationship with the soil (Foster, 2000; Saito, 2017). However, contrary to claims of Foster and Saito, Marx never developed the idea in his theory of society and history; and his historical materialism and critique of political economy remained anthropocentric (Nayeri, 2023, Chapter 22; Nayeri, October 12, 2023). Marx accepted the ontology of nineteenth-century materialism but proposed it as dialectical materialism, thereby rejecting the prevalent mechanistic view.

Also, Marx’s theory entails no environmental ethics while Bateson’s theory of ecology of mind does.

The task remains for the twenty-first-century ecological socialists to develop a theory of human nature cognizant of Bateson’s contributions.

References:

Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. 1972.

____________. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. 1979/2002. 

Foster, John Bellamy. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. 2000.

Foster, John Bellamy, Brett Clark, Richard York. The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on Earth. 2010.

Manghi, Sergio. Forward: In Wider Perspective. In Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. 2002.

Nayeri, Kamran. “Was Marx an Ecosocialist?” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. October 12, 2023.

_____________. Whose Planet? Essays on Ecocentric Socialism. 2023.

Saito, Kohei. Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy. 2017.

3687. End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba and Threats of Military Intervention NOW!

 

By Kamran Nayeri, May 30, 2026

In recent days, the U.S. government has been making threats of military attack against Cuba. Two weeks ago, the Justice Department filed an indictment against Raul Castro, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, and five others in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of Florida. The main charge in this indictment is the decision to shoot down three airplanes belonging to Brothers to the Rescue on February 23, 1996. This group had been flying over Cuba to drop leaflets encouraging Cubans to revolt against the government.

Cubans' demand for U.S. immigration has always outstripped the supply of immigrant visas granted by the U.S. embassy. As a result, one of the problems the Cuban government has faced has been illegal immigration through the Florida Strait by often self-made boats, putting them in danger of dehydration and drowning in treacherous waters.

Brothers for the Rescue was formed in May 1991 by a group of Cuban pilots who immigrated to the United States. Its initial goal was to help Cubans who were sailing from Cuba to Florida. However, its founder, Jose Basulto, had a history of working for the CIA. This group increasingly worked to help overthrow the Cuban government, including by propaganda through dropping leaflets in Cuba (Robles, May 20, 2026).  Prior to the targeting of the "Brothers for the Rescue" planes, the Cuban government had repeatedly complained to the US government about the activities of this group based in Florida, which was made up of U.S. nationals or legal residents. Several negotiation meetings were held between the diplomats of the two countries, but the U.S. government took no action to stop these illegal flights that contributed to a counter-revolution in Cuba.

Trump's anti-Cuba policies escalated after his success in the imperialist campaign against the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, which led to the kidnapping of him and his wife, Celia Flores, on January 3 of this year, and replacing him with Vice President Delcy Rodríguez. Rodriguez and the leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela abandoned the socialist language used by the Maduro government, replacing senior officials, mainly from the military, in 13 of the 32 ministries.

From the first day after Maduro's abduction, Trump declared his main goal of controlling Venezuela's resources and oil industry.  With 303 billion barrels of oil estimated in 2023, Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world. Oil was discovered in Venezuela in the late 19th century, but its extraction began in 1922 by American and European companies. In 1976, Venezuela nationalized the oil industry.

On January 29, Rodríguez, with the cooperation of parliament, where the United Socialist Party holds a majority, enacted a law to privatize oil production and sales.  At the same time, the United States lifted sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry and issued licenses to American oil companies to enter the Venezuelan oil industry. According to U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who visited Venezuela in February, Venezuela's oil sales had reached $1 billion after Maduro's abduction, and another $5 billion is expected in the coming months.

U.S. action against Cuba after Maduro's abductionThe day after Maduro was kidnapped from Venezuela, Trump turned his attention to Cuba as a “trouble spot” and threatened it to "make a deal" with him before it was too late. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel responded by saying that those who turn everything, even human lives, into business, lack the moral credibility to criticize Cuba. 

By declaring a state of emergency, Trump used his executive power to warn that any country that sells or gives oil to Cuba will be subject to tariffs (Robles, January 30, 2026).  On February 27, the day before the start of the war against Iran, Trump said in his speech that he would take Cuba in a “friendly way."

The crisis caused by the ban on oil exports to Cuba

The blocking of oil imports to Cuba quickly turned into a full-blown crisis. The New York  Times compared it to the blockade of Cuba during the 1962 Missile Crisis.

According to the UN Human Rights Office, the oil blockade of Cuba has caused severe fuel shortages, threatened the country's food supply and water system, and affected hospitals. According to the UN World Food Program, along with Hurricane Melissa, fuel shortages have hurt crops in agriculture. The Cuban government has been forced to close down schools, universities and some transportation services. Due to the lack of fuel for vehicles, garbage has accumulated in Havana neighborhoods, posing a risk of disease spread. Electricity is rationed in all cities, and in some cases there is only two to four hours of electricity per day.

On March 13, 2026, Dias Canel announced that Cuba was in negotiations with the United States (Duran, March 13, 2026). Of course, the people of Cuba and the rest of the world knew nothing about these negotiations. At the end of March, reports emerged about these secret negotiations, suggesting that Trump's goal was to replace Díaz-Canel (Cotto, March 24, 2026). Canel was elected president on April 19, 2018, at the suggestion of Raúl Castro, and by his proposal at the party Congress on April 16, 2021, he was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party.  Before him, Raúl Castro held both positions.

On April 9, Canel said he would not resign in a rally.

Before formal negotiations between the two countries began, Trump's representatives secretly met with Raúl Castro's grandson, Rodrigo Castro. During these talks, Trump apparently called for the release of "political prisoners."

In  an interview on April 23, Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations, Ernesto Sobron Guzmán, said Cuba's internal affairs, including those in detention, would not be negotiated with the United States.

On April 28, Republican senators holding a majority blocked a bill introduced by Democratic senators to end oil blockade of Cuba.

While negotiating, Trump threatened Cuba with military intervention. At the same time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered $ 100 million in “humanitarian aid” to the Cuban people, along with two years of free Starlink service!

In the past, the same kind of offers have been made to Cuba by the U.S. government. On the one hand, they have tried to harm the Cuban economy and people's daily lives with sanctions and a blockade, and on the other hand, they have offered "humanitarian aid" on the condition that they directly distribute it to “the Cuban people,” bypassing the Cuban government!  Of course, the Cuban government has never accepted such "aid."

On May 14, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba to deliver a "message" to the Cuban government while U.S. spy planes reportedly increased their flights around Cuba.  According  to "anonymous" CIA officials quoted in the US press, the Trump administration will only "seriously engage in dialogue" if Havana makes "fundamental changes."

The United States has increased the possibility of military action. On May 17, Axios published a report claiming that  Cuba had received about 300 military drones from Iran and Russia  and intends to  use them to attack "the U.S. base at Guantanamo, U.S. military ships, and possibly Key West, Florida."

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez responded, "Without any legitimate excuse, the U.S.  government is building a fabricated dossier day in  and day out to justify its brutal economic war against the Cuban people and ultimately military aggression." He added, "Certain media outlets write in their favor and promote slanders."

The Cuban government issued a statement after meeting with Ratcliffe, saying Cuba "does not pose a threat to the national security of the United States, and there is no valid reason to put it on the list of countries that allegedly support terrorism."

The Cuban government reiterated that Cuba "does not host, support or finance terrorist or extremist organizations, and does  not allow any foreign military or intelligence bases to exist on its territory" and that it "has never supported and  will not allow any hostile action against the United States.”

The need for solidarity with Cuba

As I have emphasized earlier,

“Today's crisis-ridden Cuba has no resemblance to a society in transition to socialism; rather, Cuba seems more like a peripheral country under economic sanctions and threats from imperialism. Of course, working people must oppose these imperialist actions and threats. However, the one-party system dominated by Stalinist ideology has made it impossible for any form of socialist democracy to develop and for a much-needed democratic public discussion in Cuba on how to get out of the crisis. Instead, the Communist Party (PCC) leadership has for six decades tried to avert the systemic crisis rooted in the lack of socialist motivation of the working people by using administrative measures and market incentives (Nayeri, 2024).”

Still, Trump administration's filing of a case against Raul Castro is an attempt to create a political atmosphere for the purpose of toppling the Cuban government. The aim of this invasion is to crush all the achievements of the Cuban national democratic revolution of 1959, which ended half a century of U.S. imperialist domination of the country, and paved the way for a better society for all Cubans, especially workers, peasants, women and blacks, by adopting a measure of of social justice. 

U.S. Hands off Cuba!

References:

Coto, Danicia. Associated Press. “As US pressure grows for leadership change in Cuba, a Castro could be the next president.” March 24, 2026.

Duran, Milexy, Danica Coto, Matthew Lee, and Aamer Mahani. “Cuban President Confirms US Talks as Island’s Energy and Economic Crises Intensify.” Associated Press. March 13, 2026.

Kelley, Laura. “Trump Floats ‘Friendly Takeover’ of Cuba.” The Hill, February 27, 2026.

Nayeri, Kamran. “The Cuban Revolution and Other Socialist Revolutions of the Twentieth Century: A Reassessment.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. October 16, 2024.

Robles, Frances. “Trump Moves to Cut Off All Oil to Cuba as U.S. Takes Aim at Its Government.” The New York Times, January 30, 2026. 

3686. The U.S./Israeli War Against Iran and The Future of Life on Earth

 By Kamran Nayeri, March 16, 2026

A neighborhood in Tehran after U.S./Israeli bombings. Photo credit: The New York Times

“In our epoch, which is the epoch of imperialism, i.e., of world economy and world politics under the hegemony of finance capital, not a single communist party can establish its program by proceeding solely or mainly from conditions and tendencies of developments in its own country.” Leon Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin. 1928.

When I first read this passage in 1972, it resonated with me for two reasons: I realized how deeply modern human society is interconnected within the capitalist world economy, and because I understood why Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution is revolutionary and Stalin’s theory of “socialism in one country” was counterrevolutionary.

Years later, I learned that the theory of finance capital (imperialism) of Hilferding on the basis of which Bukharin and Lenin theories of imperialism are constructed to explain the origins of World War I was a mistaken break with Marx’s theory of the capitalist mode of production, which has important ramifications for understanding the nature of capitalism (Nayeri 2023B, Chapter 4), hence what would be needed to transcend it to reach socialism (Nayeri, 2025, Chapter Six). Since 2009, I have learned that human society itself is deeply embedded in and depends on the web of life. This would require us to develop new theories of capitalism and socialism grounded in an integrated theory of society and nature. I have developed  Ecocentric Socialism as such a theory (Nayeri, 2023A; Chapter 19).

This essay provides a different framework for understanding the war Israel and the U.S. have launched against Iran on February 28, 2026, not just from the mainstream analyses but also from what is presented by much of the Left.

The war must be opposed not just because it is unjust, illegal, and disruptive of the capitalist world economy, and has been causing untold number of working people in Iran and the Middle East misery or that it is a Zionist and imperialist war against Iran, but because it is yet another facet of the crisis of anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization of which the U.S., Israel, and Iran are all integral parts and it that it has and will have vast adverse implication for the future of life in in the region and in the world.

*     *      *

The essay further develops the analyses presented in two more recent writings. In “The Dead End of U.S./Israeli War Against Iran (Nayeri, June 22, 2025),” I analyzed the 12-day war that Israel started on June 13, 2025, to argue that the actual goal of Israel's and the U.S. 's war was to reverse the gains of the 1979 Iranian revolution. That revolution overthrew the U.S.-installed regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (the Shah), which had become increasingly dictatorial and despised by the millions of Iranian people. The Shah’s regime was part of the anti-communist Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) alliance and a supporter of the colonial settler states of South Africa and the Israeli apartheid regimes.

I further argued that the Islamic Republic, while independent of Western imperialism, was a counter-revolutionary force that by the summer of 1982 consolidated itself by brutally destroying all independent grassroots organizations that emerged from the 1979 revolution. The Islamic Republic was the brainchild of Ayatollah Khomeini, who in the early 1970s wrote a pamphlet advocating the creation of an Islamic government ruled by Velayat-e Faghih (Islamic Jurisprudence) to unify Muslims (at least Shiites). This vision requires expanding the Islamic Republic's power across the Middle East.

Thus, there has been, since 1979, an ongoing conflict between the U.S. as the leader of Western imperialism, Israeli Zionism, and the Islamic Republic; all three are expansionist, reactionary ideologies backed by state power and struggling for domination in the Middle East.

In  “Foreign Policy of the Second Trump Administration” (Nayeri, February 16, 2026), I argued that the rise of the White supremacist Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement with Trump as its leader represent a reaction to the relative decline of U.S. imperialism and an end to the so-called Pax Americana (American Peace; some called the American Century) as China has been able to industrialize and surpass the United States as the leading capitalist power. Concurrently, the European economies have been experiencing slow growth for some time. Thus, the world dominance of European civilization that began five hundred years ago has come to an end, as Asian civilizations, especially China, rise up.

The shift of the center of world power in the past has been marked by violence and wars. When Germany and the United States industrialized and surpassed Britain as the dominant industrial capitalist power, the world witnessed the bloody inter-imperialist World Wars I and II, which ended with the United States' supremacy.

Thus, we live in a very dangerous time for the following reasons.

First, the inter-imperialist rivalry is increasing and can lead to a world war in which the main contenders are nuclear states.

Second, regional wars, such as the Ukraine and Iran wars, as terrible as they are, can easily escalate into a world war. Three weeks into the US/Israel war against Iran, it has already spread to the rest of the Middle East and effectively closed the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, damaging the world economy. The war is threatening the Gulf states that depend on desalination plants for their water on the non-polluted Persian Gulf, which is open to shipping to bring in their food and export their oil.

Third, the world faces existential ecological crises such as catastrophic climate change, the Sixth Extinction, recurrent pandemics, and nuclear holocaust. To address these crises, a coordinated response by all countries, especially the most powerful, is required. Instead, we face increased rivalry and hostility among capitalist states.

Fourth, the only historical agency to act in the interest of humanity and life on Earth is the working people. If they are not organized and mobilized to act in the interest of all life on Earth, the existential crises we face can lead to the collapse of civilization and possibly the end of humanity. However, only democracy from below would allow the widest public discussion necessary to adopt the actions needed to address the crisis of anthropocentric, industrial capitalist civilization. However, increased rivalry among capitalist states and certainly this war tends to limit working people's democratic participation in deciding their own future.

Israel/US relations

Ervand Abrahamian (2026), a well-regarded historian of the Middle East, has argued that since the Obama presidency, the U.S. political class has relegated its foreign policy to Israel. This view has been shared by others, including Mazzatti et.al. 2026). Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the Trump administration “was pulled into this war” after Israel began attacking Iran in the early morning of Saturday, February 28 (Stein, March 2, 2026).  Abrahamian argues that the US's dependency on Israel is reflected in the fact that it has Middle East specialists in its foreign policy decision-making teams.

I would argue that there are more ideological/political reasons for the US following the Israelis' lead in the Middle East.  In his first term as the President, Trump tore up the 2015 agreement between the Islamic Republic of Iran and a group of world powers: the P5+1 (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China—plus Germany) and the European Union. Although that agreement held up well in opening the Islamic Republic's nuclear industry to international inspection. Trump's action fulfilled Benjamin Netanyahu's opposition to the agreement. In response, the Islamic Republic resumed uranium enrichment to 60 percent. They viewed this as their bargaining chip to remove sanctions. Instead, the US and its European allies increased the sanctions, and tensions increased.

Christian Zionism and Trump’s second term presidency

The U.S. played a central role in the creation of the State of Israel in Palestine in 1948, at the time of colonial revolution and Arab nationalism, to serve as a Garrison State. The concept of the Garrison State was introduced in a seminal, highly influential 1941 article in the American Journal of Sociology by political scientist and sociologist Harold Lasswell, who outlined the possibility of a political-military elite composed of "specialists in violence" in modern states.

The animosity of Israel with Palestinians and Arab neighbors manifested in a series of wars in which weak Arab neighbors were defeated, and Israel took ever more territory in Palestine and beyond.

Since the 1960s, the alliance between Israel and the United States has grown in economic, strategic, and military aspects. The U.S. has played a key role in ensuring good relations between Arab nations and Israel. In turn, Israel provides a strategic American foothold in the region as well as intelligence and advanced technological partnerships. Relations with Israel are an important factor in the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

The importance of Israel in the U.S. Middle East policy was underscored by Senator Joseph Biden, a self-described Zionist, who argued the annual U.S. aid to Israel is a “good investment” and that if there were no state of Israel, the U.S. would have to create one!

As Sharp (2025) writes in a report for the U.S. Congress:

“Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. Successive Administrations, working with Congress, have provided Israel with assistance reflective of robust domestic U.S. support for Israel and its security; shared strategic goals in the Middle East; and historical ties dating from U.S. support for the creation of Israel in 1948. To date, the United States has provided Israel with $174 billion (in current, or non-inflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding.

“Over the last two decades, including during Israel's ongoing conflict with Hamas, American public attitudes toward Israel, as expressed in public-opinion polling, have shifted somewhat when compared to previous eras. Though lawmakers continue to vote in favor of U.S. assistance to Israel, there have been calls from some political and ideological groups to reevaluate the long-standing U.S.-Israeli assistance relationship.

“In 2016, the U.S. and Israeli governments signed their third 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on military aid, covering FY2019 to FY2028. Under the terms of the MOU, the United States pledged to provide—subject to congressional appropriation—$38 billion in military aid ($33 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants plus $5 billion in missile defense appropriations) to Israel. While negotiations over the next MOU have yet to start, U.S. and Israeli experts and government officials have already started to formulate proposals to shape future U.S.-Israeli military cooperation.

“Since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and Israel's subsequent conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, Congress has provided emergency supplemental military assistance to Israel and appropriated funding beyond the annual MOU terms for joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs. In April 2024, Congress passed P.L. 118-50 (Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes). That act included, among other things, $3.5 billion in FMF for Israel. The act also included $5.2 billion in defense appropriations for missile defense ($4 billion) and Israel's new laser defense system, Iron Beam ($1.2 billion). (Sharp, 2025)”

There is also an overlooked religious/ideological basis for the current U.S. unqualified support for Israel: Christian Zionism. Christian Zionists are evangelical Christians who espouse the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land as a precondition for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. “During the 1980s, as the Republican Party forged alliances with the emerging religious right, Israel would become a core cause for the GOP. (Goldman, 2025).”

“A major impetus behind the movement is the belief that the Jews’ return will lead to the Second Coming of Jesus. Christian Zionists also believe that by blessing and supporting Israel, considered both as the collective Jewish people and the modern state, they themselves will be blessed by God.” (Comstock, January 23, 2026).

With the Republican Party in power in Washington since the 2024 elections, Christian Zionism holds sway in Washington.: 83% of Republicans view Israel favorably, compared with 33% of Democrats. Republicans in Congress are pushing to use the biblical terms “Judea and Samaria” instead of the West Bank. Evangelical Christian Zionists continue to call for support of the Israeli right and of settlers in the occupied territories. 25 to 30 percent of Trump supporters are estimated to be Christian Zionists (Stanley, February 5, 2025).

Trump's second administration includes Christian Zionists in key posts, including the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Paula White-Cain, Trump’s personal pastor for over two decades, is a Christian Zionist. She has a long history of vocal support for Israel. She was influential in Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 2017 and the push to sign the Abraham Accords to get more Arab states to recognize Israel in 2020.

Trump picked two Zionists who have personal and business ties to him, Jared Kushner (son-in-law) and Steve Witkoff, to represent the U.S. government in negotiations with the Islamic Republic. These were not negotiations but a series of meetings to convey an ultimatum to the Islamic Republic that if it did not accept Trump’s demand, Iran would be attacked. Thus, Abbas Araghchi, the Islamic Republic's foreign minister and the negotiator, complained at every opportunity that the Iranian side would respond only if treated as an equal and that the U.S. side was issuing demands rather than negotiating, which requires concessions on both sides to reach a The Netanyahu government's strategy for dominance in the Middle East

Benjamin Netanyahu, currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, has been the longest-serving prime minister of Israel. This is not an accident: as a colonial-settler regime, Israel has been systematically aiming to capture more land of the historic Palestine, hence it has built an apartheid state in which Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens.

Netanyahu has been a driving force for these Zionist policies. He used Hamas’s rebellion against the Israeli-imposed open prison policy on Gaza to wage a genocidal war there and, at the same time, encourage building of settlements in the West Bank.

On April 12, 2025, Iran entered negotiations with Trump’s administration aimed at reaching a nuclear peace agreement. Trump set a 60-day deadline for Iran to reach an agreement. After the deadline passed without an agreement, Israel attacked Iran on June 13. Lazar (June 13, 2025) wrote in Times of Israel about how these negotiations were used by Israel and the U.S. to give the Islamic Republic a sense of security before a surprise attack.

In his second term, emboldened by his return to the White House, Trump has pursued gunboat diplomacy, using U.S. military superiority to advance the U.S. sphere of influence and support the U.S. economy.

The US joined the Israeli war against Iran on February 28. Netanyahu had assured Trump that, with the Axis of Resistance weakened with the fall of the Ba'athist regime in Syria, degradation of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and being deeply unpopular among a large part of the population inside Iran, it was possible to overthrow it and install a regime favorable to Washington and Israel. This would ensure U.S./Israeli domination of the Middle East.

Thus, the current U.S./Israel war against Iran is the continuation of the Israel/U.S. genocidal war in Gaza. After it became clear that the Islamic Republic would not crumble with the onset of this war and there would be no mass uprising against Iranians who would welcome the invading Israeli and American militaries, the Gaza strategy to carpet bomb Iranian cities was adopted, leading to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by the Iranian forces. The success of the asymmetrical war strategy that was developed after the eight-year-long war with Iraq has kept the Zionist and imperialist forces at bay, creating a deadlock in the war.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has quickly pushed oil prices above $100 a barrel and forced governments to tap their strategic reserves to keep their economies running. If the Strait of Hormuz is mined, it may take months before shipping through it returns to normal. These factors tie the hands of Israel and the U.S. from their plans to massively bombard Iran.

The resistance by the Islamic Republic in this war has further weakened the United States as a declining power.

The crisis of the anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization

War is a continuation of politics with violent means. Politics is concentrated economics. For five thousand years, civilizations have been built on the expropriation of nature by the exploitation of the working people. In the capitalist epoch, wars are driven by the laws of motion of capital. This undercurrent for wars is wrapped in old ideological motives. The Crusades (1095-1291 AD), a series of military campaigns launched by the papacy against Muslim rulers to recover and defend the Holy Land, were encouraged by promises of spiritual reward. Trump’s war against Venezuela, dressed as a war against drug cartels and for democratic elections, proved to be for a subservient government in Caracas and control over Venezuela's oil. The Zionist appeal to the bible and Moses is for taking over the land of Palestine from its people.

Yet the ever-increasing wealth of the ruling classes and nations is only possible by further degradation of the natural basis of life on Mother Earth. Thus, the Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran wars are not just social crises but also the intensification of existential ecological crises worldwide.

The fossil fuel industry, on which the Gulf states and Iran rely, remains the largest contributor to catastrophic climate change, accounting for 59-65% of emissions from 1990 to 2019.

Middle Eastern countries will also be among the early victims of climate change.

“The countries of the Middle East, especially Arabic-speaking ones, are among the world’s most exposed states to the accelerating impacts of human-caused climate change, including soaring heat waves, declining precipitation, extended droughts, more intense sandstorms and floods, and rising sea levels. But the consequences will be felt unevenly across the region. Resource-poor countries that lack adaptive capacities like infrastructure, technology, and human and physical capital will suffer more acutely, especially as global warming contributes to the degradation of rural livelihoods and jeopardizes food security. The effects will magnify preexisting inequities and decades of unsustainable government policies, particularly those related to water and land management” (Wehrly, 2024).

Francis and Fonseca (2025) add:

“Model projections for the ‘business-as-usual’ climate change scenario indicate that half of the population in the Middle East and North African region (roughly 600 million people) could be exposed to recurring super- and ultra-extreme heatwaves, which will feature air temperatures up to 56 °C and higher lasting for several weeks at a time, in the second half of this century21. Even though the aridity in the MENA region has significantly increased in recent decades, extreme rainfall events may be more impactful in a warming world.”(Francis and Fonseca, 2024).

The working people, the only social force that can stop this madness, must demand an end to the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran and organize ourself to discuss and adopt alternative for a better world in which humans would live in peace with each other and with the rest of life on Earth.

 

References:

Abrahamian, Ervand. “Can Iran Survive? An Urgent Discussion on the US-Israel War on Iran” Verso Books, March 20, 2026.

Berman, Lazar. “How an Israeli-American Deception Campaign Lulled Iran into a False Sense of Security.” Times of Israel. June 15, 2025.

Francis, Diana and Ricardo Fonseca. “Recent and projected changes in climate patterns in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.” Nature. May 4, 2024

Comstock, Frannie. “Christian Zionism.” Britanica. January 23, 2026.“

Goldman, Shalom. “Christian Zionism hasn’t always been a conservative evangelical creed – churches’ views of Israel have evolved over decades.” The Conversation. April 2, 2025.

Mazetti,  Mark Mazzetti, Julian E. Barnes, Tyler Pager, et al. “How Trump Decided to Go to War.”  The New York Times, March 2, 2026.

Nayeri, Kamran. Whose Planet? Essays on Ecocentric Socialism. 2023A.

_____________. Toward a Theory of Uneven and Combined Late Capitalist Development. 2023B.

_____________. Between Dreams and Reality: Essays on Revolution and Socialism. 2025.

_____________. “The Dead End of U.S./Israeli War Against Iran.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. June 22, 2025.

_____________. “Foreign Policy of the Second Trump Administration.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism.  February 16, 2026.

Olmsted, Judith. “Let’s Just Do It: How Netanyahu Convinced Trump to Bomb Iran.” New Republic. March 2, 2026.

Sharp, Jermey M. “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel: Overview and Developments since October 7, 2023.” May 28, 2025.

Stanley, Tiffany. “Why conservative American evangelicals are among Israel’s strongest supporters.” Associated Press. February 5, 2025.

Stein, Chris. “US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel’s plan to launch attack, Rubio says.” March 2, 2026. The Guardian.

 Wehrey, Fredric. “Introduction” in Frederic Wehrey, et.al. “Climate Change and Vulnerability in the Middle East,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Jul 6, 2023.