Gary Mongiovi's review of Geoffrey Hodgson on Darwin and Marx may, unlike
Hodgson himself, overstate the actual role and views of Darwin.  Alfred
Russel Wallace, in the Fortnightly Review, 1893, Vol. 53, "Are
Individually Acquired Characters Inherited?," rebuts arguments by 
Herbert Spencer and others supporting the (Lamarckian) notion that 
individually acquired characters might be passed along from parents to 
their progeny. Herbert Spencer, whom Wallace cites as a strong Lamarckian, 
was one of the most prominent public spokesmen for Darwin; and Darwin 
never contradicted Spencer, to my knowledge. Wallace quotes Darwin as 
mugwumping the issue, not wanting to contradict Lamarckians directly. 
Galton's experiments appeared to refute Lamarck, but it was not
until August Weismann of Freiburg (English transl. 1893) that the issue
was settled in what is now miscalled the "Darwinian" way. Later Mendel's 
Laws, discovered but not published earlier, came to light to confirm and 
elaborate on Weismann.

Darwin's contemporary Alfred Russel Wallace, as the 1893 article indicates,
contradicted Lamarck openly, which Darwin never did. It would seem that
Wallace should replace Darwin as the father of natural selection. The irony
is that Wallace, unlike Darwin and his publicists Huxley, Spencer, Sumner,
et al., was an active redistributionist. There is one acquired characteristic that is definitely inherited: wealth.  Wallace saw this as dysgenic, and proposed radical solutions (e.g. in Land Nationalization, 1882).

Veblen never espoused policy positions overtly, but his Absentee Ownership
(1923) comes as close to reflecting Wallace's views as one can without
outright endorsing them. Veblen=92s evolutionary philosophy entails mocking
the atavisms inherited in the culture, which is the next thing to rejecting
them.

Mason Gaffney