When the concept of cultural evolution began it was used as a way to justify the current order of market economies and capitalism, which has grown through colonization, subjugation, and assimilation of cultures around the world in the conquest of people and resources.

In the early days, cultural evolution was based on the concept of unilineal evolution, which states that humans progress in a specific patterns in a specific order, roughly from hunters and gatherers to capitalist civilization. The unilineal form of civilizational development has been repeatedly disproved, and yet the concept still lives on in movies, television, writing and popular beliefs. It is also based on Social Darwinism, which was developed to support the market economy's values, and has also proven detrimental to human cultures.

Social Darwinism was a faulty concept, based on Darwin's own faulty concepts of natural selection, which have culminated in the idea of survival of the fittest style competition throughout nature. has also been disproved by scientific experimentation, exploration, and evolutionary modelling. Kropotkin's idea of mutual aid being the dominant organization of nature, now seems to be the basis of natural economies and social development. Life survives in a wide range of environments by sharing and giving to an interdependence of all life. Life then takes what it needs to survive. Life does not compete for resources unless some scarcity has forced it to do so. Circumstances where a species takes more than the environment can support results in a destabilization throughout the environment. These ideas, which have reinforced cultures of individualism and competition, are the basis of an economy which is destroying the natural environment that we all live in.

Market economies and other systems based on competition have failed to support life. They consume the resources, time, and interactions of people and the planet. It is like a great beast feeding on humanity. It exists because it benefits powerful people. It gives them power to acquire resources and control populations for their own self interest. They are the ones who believe in individualism because it suits their rule over the rest. It pits people against each other as individuals.

We know that Teams and villages are more effective at getting things accomplished than individuals. People can work together when they share their beliefs and goals. Cultures can work together where they overlap. People can work together to create a better world while we reduce and eliminate the impact of market economies.

Cultural evolution doesn't have to be tied to unilineal evolution, social darwinism, or any other concept of domination. Evolution happens. It is the process of change over time. Cultures adapt and change to their environments and share with other cultures. Cultures can be created consciously.
Market economies create culture through advertising and entertainment, other cultures can be created through humans sharing practices and beliefs. We're not working from a blank slate either. There are cultures which respect the environment and take care of people.

Gift economies take care of people's needs first. Beyond that, they are limitless in their creativity and variation of cultural practices. We see it in the remaining matriarchal cultures. We see it everywhere in nature. We see it in the life around us. Life produces what it needs and a little extra for everyone else. We can build collectives, villages, and tribes that do the same. Produce a little extra and share it with others.

Developing gift economies to replace the functions of government and markets economies can free humanity and start the healing process. By reintegrating our practices with the ways of nature, we can heal the planet. If we build an economy, which will heal humanity and the planet.

We can do all of this by form ecovillages, building gift economies, growing food, and providing for each other. Share resources to manufacture tools. Share the creativity of humanity, by sharing designs, plans, and educational resources. Contribute to wiki style stores of knowledge which are not owned by market forces.

As we build alternatives, we can stop contributing to and relying on the market economy. It is killing the natural environment and will not stop on it's own. We must stop utilising it for our needs.

Recycle with organizations that take waste out of the current waste streams.
Build housing on shared land.
Use the natural resources around you first.
If you rely on something for your survival, find some way to create it.
Plant trees and grow environments for life to flourish.
Transform your local environment into one that supports life.
Be prepared to survive and defend your survival.

People breath life into the beast of markets and capitalism. They believe in it. They will defend it. We can't let them stop what we're doing. It doesn't fit into their destructive culture.