Social Darwinism is a modern name given to
various theories of society that emerged in
the United States and Europe in the 1870s,
and which sought to apply biological concepts
of natural selection and survival of the fittest
to sociology and politics. Social Darwinists
generally argue that the strong should see
their wealth and power increase while the
weak should see their wealth and power decrease.
Different social Darwinists have different
views about which groups of people are the
strong and the weak, and they also hold different
opinions about the precise mechanism that
should be used to promote strength and punish
weakness. Many such views stress competition
between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism,
while others motivated ideas of eugenics,
racism, imperialism, fascism, Nazism and struggle
between national or racial groups.
The term social Darwinism gained widespread
currency when used after 1944 by opponents
of these earlier concepts. Today, because
of the negative connotations of the theory
of social Darwinism, especially after the
atrocities of the Second World War, few people
would describe themselves as social Darwinists
and the term is generally seen as pejorative.
Creationists have often maintained that social
Darwinism—leading to policies designed to
make the weak perish—is a logical consequence
of "Darwinism". Biologists and historians
have stated that this is a naturalistic fallacy,
since the theory of natural selection is merely
intended as a description of a biological
phenomenon and should not be taken to imply
that this phenomenon is good or that it ought
to be used as a moral guide in human society.
Social Darwinism owed more to Herbert Spencer's
ideas, together with genetics and a Protestant
Nonconfirmist tradition with roots in Hobbes
and Malthus, than to Charles Darwin's research.
While most scholars recognize some historical
links between the popularisation of Darwin's
theory and forms of social Darwinism, they
also maintain that social Darwinism is not
a necessary consequence of the principles
of biological evolution.
Scholars debate the extent to which the various
social Darwinist ideologies reflect Charles
Darwin's own views on human social and economic
issues. His writings have passages that can
be interpreted as opposing aggressive individualism,
while other passages appear to promote it.
Some scholars argue that Darwin's view gradually
changed and came to incorporate views from
the leading social interpreters of his theory
such as Spencer, but Spencer's Lamarckian
evolutionary ideas about society were published
before Darwin first published his theory,
and both promoted their own conceptions of
moral values. Spencer supported laissez-faire
capitalism on the basis of his Lamarckian
belief that struggle for survival spurred
self-improvement which could be inherited.
Origin of the term
The term first appeared in Europe in 1877,
and around this time it was used by sociologists
opposed to the concept. The term was popularized
in the United States in 1944 by the American
historian Richard Hofstadter who used it in
the ideological war effort against fascism
to denote a reactionary creed which promoted
competitive strife, racism and chauvinism.
Hofstadter later also recognized the influence
of Darwinist and other evolutionary ideas
upon those with collectivist views, enough
to devise a term for the phenomenon, "Darwinist
collectivism." Before Hofstadter's work the
use of the term "social Darwinism" in English
academic journals was quite rare. In fact,
...there is considerable evidence that the
entire concept of "social Darwinism" as we
know it today was virtually invented by Richard
Hofstadter. Eric Foner, in an introduction
to a then-new edition of Hofstadter's book
published in the early 1990s, declines to
go quite that far. "Hofstadter did not invent
the term Social Darwinism," Foner writes,
"which originated in Europe in the 1860s and
crossed the Atlantic in the early twentieth
century. But before he wrote, it was used
only on rare occasions; he made it a standard
shorthand for a complex of late-nineteenth-century
ideas, a familiar part of the lexicon of social
thought."
The term "social Darwinism" has rarely been
used by advocates of the supposed ideologies
or ideas; instead it has almost always been
used by its opponents, with one modern exception.
The term "social Darwinism" is self-ascribed
in the case of the Church of Satan and modern
Satanism The term draws upon the common use
of the term Darwinism, which has been used
to describe a range of evolutionary views,
but in the late 19th century was applied more
specifically to natural selection as first
advanced by Charles Darwin to explain speciation
in populations of organisms. The process includes
competition between individuals for limited
resources, popularly but inaccurately described
by the phrase "survival of the fittest," a
term coined by sociologist Herbert Spencer.
While the term has been applied to the claim
that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural
selection can be used to understand the social
endurance of a nation or country, social Darwinism
commonly refers to ideas that predate Darwin's
publication of On the Origin of Species. Others
whose ideas are given the label include the
18th century clergyman Thomas Malthus, and
Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who founded
eugenics towards the end of the 19th century.
Theories and origins
The term Darwinism had been coined by Thomas
Henry Huxley in his April 1860 review of On
the Origin of Species, and by the 1870s it
was used to describe a range of concepts of
evolutionism or development, without any specific
commitment to Charles Darwin's own theory.
The first use of the phrase "social Darwinism"
was in Joseph Fisher's 1877 article on The
History of Landholding in Ireland which was
published in the Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society. Fisher was commenting
on how a system for borrowing livestock which
had been called "tenure" had led to the false
impression that the early Irish had already
evolved or developed land tenure;
These arrangements did not in any way affect
that which we understand by the word " tenure,"
that is, a man's farm, but they related solely
to cattle, which we consider a chattel. It
has appeared necessary to devote some space
to this subject, inasmuch as that usually
acute writer Sir Henry Maine has accepted
the word " tenure " in its modern interpretation,
and has built up a theory under which the
Irish chief " developed " into a feudal baron.
I can find nothing in the Brehon laws to warrant
this theory of social Darwinism, and believe
further study will show that the Cain Saerrath
and the Cain Aigillue relate solely to what
we now call chattels, and did not in any way
affect what we now call the freehold, the
possession of the land.
— Fisher 1877.
Despite the fact that social Darwinism bears
Charles Darwin's name, it is also linked today
with others, notably Herbert Spencer, Thomas
Malthus, and Francis Galton, the founder of
eugenics. In fact, Spencer was not described
as a social Darwinist until the 1930s, long
after his death.
Darwin himself gave serious consideration
to Galton's work, but considered the ideas
of "hereditary improvement" impractical. Aware
of weaknesses in his own family, Darwin was
sure that families would naturally refuse
such selection and wreck the scheme. He thought
that even if compulsory registration was the
only way to improve the human race, this illiberal
idea would be unacceptable, and it would be
better to publicize the "principle of inheritance"
and let people decide for themselves.
In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation
to Sex of 1882 Darwin described how medical
advances meant that the weaker were able to
survive and have families, and as he commented
on the effects of this, he cautioned that
hard reason should not override sympathy and
considered how other factors might reduce
the effect:
Thus the weak members of civilized societies
propagate their kind. No one who has attended
to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt
that this must be highly injurious to the
race of man. It is surprising how soon a want
of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to
the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting
in the case of man himself, hardly any one
is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals
to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to
the helpless is mainly an incidental result
of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally
acquired as part of the social instincts,
but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously
indicated, more tender and more widely diffused.
Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the
urging of hard reason, without deterioration
in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon
may harden himself whilst performing an operation,
for he knows that he is acting for the good
of his patient; but if we were intentionally
to neglect the weak and helpless, it could
only be for a contingent benefit, with an
overwhelming present evil. ... We must therefore
bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak
surviving and propagating their kind; but
there appears to be at least one check in
steady action, namely that the weaker and
inferior members of society do not marry so
freely as the sound; and this check might
be indefinitely increased by the weak in body
or mind refraining from marriage, though this
is more to be hoped for than expected.
Social Darwinists
Herbert Spencer's ideas, like those of evolutionary
progressivism, stemmed from his reading of
Thomas Malthus, and his later theories were
influenced by those of Darwin. However, Spencer's
major work, Progress: Its Law and Cause was
released three years before the publication
of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and
First Principles was printed in 1860.
In The Social Organism, Spencer compares society
to a living organism and argues that, just
as biological organisms evolve through natural
selection, society evolves and increases in
complexity through analogous processes.
In many ways, Spencer's theory of cosmic evolution
has much more in common with the works of
Lamarck and Auguste Comte's positivism than
with Darwin's.
Jeff Riggenbach argues that Spencer's view
was that culture and education made a sort
of Lamarckism possible and notes that Herbert
Spencer was a proponent of private charity.
Spencer's work also served to renew interest
in the work of Malthus. While Malthus's work
does not itself qualify as social Darwinism,
his 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of
Population, was incredibly popular and widely
read by social Darwinists. In that book, for
example, the author argued that as an increasing
population would normally outgrow its food
supply, this would result in the starvation
of the weakest and a Malthusian catastrophe.
According to Michael Ruse, Darwin read Malthus'
famous Essay on a Principle of Population
in 1838, four years after Malthus' death.
Malthus himself anticipated the social Darwinists
in suggesting that charity could exacerbate
social problems.
Another of these social interpretations of
Darwin's biological views, later known as
eugenics, was put forth by Darwin's cousin,
Francis Galton, in 1865 and 1869. Galton argued
that just as physical traits were clearly
inherited among generations of people, the
same could be said for mental qualities. Galton
argued that social morals needed to change
so that heredity was a conscious decision
in order to avoid both the over-breeding by
less fit members of society and the under-breeding
of the more fit ones.
In Galton's view, social institutions such
as welfare and insane asylums were allowing
inferior humans to survive and reproduce at
levels faster than the more "superior" humans
in respectable society, and if corrections
were not soon taken, society would be awash
with "inferiors." Darwin read his cousin's
work with interest, and devoted sections of
Descent of Man to discussion of Galton's theories.
Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated
any eugenic policies such as those that would
be undertaken in the early 20th century, for
government coercion of any form was very much
against their political opinions.
Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy addressed
the question of artificial selection, yet
Nietzsche's principles did not concur with
Darwinian theories of natural selection. Nietzsche's
point of view on sickness and health, in particular,
opposed him to the concept of biological adaptation
as forged by Spencer's "fitness". Nietzsche
criticized Haeckel, Spencer, and Darwin, sometimes
under the same banner by maintaining that
in specific cases, sickness was necessary
and even helpful. Thus, he wrote:
Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures
are of greatest importance. Every progress
of the whole must be preceded by a partial
weakening. The strongest natures retain the
type, the weaker ones help to advance it.
Something similar also happens in the individual.
There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation,
or even a vice or any physical or moral loss
without an advantage somewhere else. In a
warlike and restless clan, for example, the
sicklier man may have occasion to be alone,
and may therefore become quieter and wiser;
the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger;
the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and
certainly hear better. To this extent, the
famous theory of the survival of the fittest
does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint
from which to explain the progress of strengthening
of a man or of a race.
The publication of Ernst Haeckel's best-selling
Welträtsel in 1899 brought social Darwinism
and earlier ideas of racial hygiene to a wider
audience. His recapitulation theory was not
Darwinism, but rather attempted to combine
the ideas of Goethe, Lamarck and Darwin. It
was adopted by emerging social sciences to
support the concept that non-European societies
were "primitive" in an early stage of development
towards the European ideal, but since then
it has been heavily refuted on many fronts
Haeckel's works led to the formation of the
Monist League in 1904 with many prominent
citizens among its members, including the
Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald. By 1909,
it had a membership of some six thousand people.
The simpler aspects of social Darwinism followed
the earlier Malthusian ideas that humans,
especially males, require competition in their
lives in order to survive in the future. Further,
the poor should have to provide for themselves
and not be given any aid. However, amidst
this climate, most social Darwinists of the
early twentieth century actually supported
better working conditions and salaries. Such
measures would grant the poor a better chance
to provide for themselves yet still distinguish
those who are capable of succeeding from those
who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or
inferiority.
Darwinism and hypotheses of social change
"Social Darwinism" was first described by
Oscar Schmidt of the University of Strasbourg,
reporting at a scientific and medical conference
held in Munich in 1877. He noted how socialists,
although opponents of Darwin's theory, nonetheless
used it to add force to their political arguments.
Schmidt's essay first appeared in English
in Popular Science in March 1879. There followed
an anarchist tract published in Paris in 1880
entitled "Le darwinisme social" by Émile
Gautier. However, the use of the term was
very rare — at least in the English-speaking
world— until the American historian Richard
Hofstadter published his influential Social
Darwinism in American Thought during World
War II.
Hypotheses of social evolution and cultural
evolution were common in Europe. The Enlightenment
thinkers who preceded Darwin, such as Hegel,
often argued that societies progressed through
stages of increasing development. Earlier
thinkers also emphasized conflict as an inherent
feature of social life. Thomas Hobbes's 17th
century portrayal of the state of nature seems
analogous to the competition for natural resources
described by Darwin. Social Darwinism is distinct
from other theories of social change because
of the way it draws Darwin's distinctive ideas
from the field of biology into social studies.
Darwin, unlike Hobbes, believed that this
struggle for natural resources allowed individuals
with certain physical and mental traits to
succeed more frequently than others, and that
these traits accumulated in the population
over time, which under certain conditions
could lead to the descendants being so different
that they would be defined as a new species.
However, Darwin felt that "social instincts"
such as "sympathy" and "moral sentiments"
also evolved through natural selection, and
that these resulted in the strengthening of
societies in which they occurred, so much
so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man:
The following proposition seems to me in a
high degree probable—namely, that any animal
whatever, endowed with well-marked social
instincts, the parental and filial affections
being here included, would inevitably acquire
a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its
intellectual powers had become as well, or
nearly as well developed, as in man. For,
firstly, the social instincts lead an animal
to take pleasure in the society of its fellows,
to feel a certain amount of sympathy with
them, and to perform various services for
them.
United States
Spencer proved to be a popular figure in the
1880s primarily because his application of
evolution to areas of human endeavor promoted
an optimistic view of the future as inevitably
becoming better. In the United States, writers
and thinkers of the gilded age such as Edward
L. Youmans, William Graham Sumner, John Fiske,
John W. Burgess, and others developed theories
of social evolution as a result of their exposure
to the works of Darwin and Spencer.
In 1883, Sumner published a highly influential
pamphlet entitled "What Social Classes Owe
to Each Other", in which he insisted that
the social classes owe each other nothing,
synthesizing Darwin's findings with free enterprise
Capitalism for his justification. According
to Sumner, those who feel an obligation to
provide assistance to those unequipped or
under-equipped to compete for resources, will
lead to a country in which the weak and inferior
are encouraged to breed more like them, eventually
dragging the country down. Sumner also believed
that the best equipped to win the struggle
for existence was the American businessman,
and concluded that taxes and regulations serve
as dangers to his survival. This pamphlet
makes no mention of Darwinism, and only refers
to Darwin in a statement on the meaning of
liberty, that "There never has been any man,
from the primitive barbarian up to a Humboldt
or a Darwin, who could do as he had a mind
to."
Sumner never fully embraced Darwinian ideas,
and some contemporary historians do not believe
that Sumner ever actually believed in social
Darwinism. The great majority of American
businessmen rejected the anti-philanthropic
implications of the theory. Instead they gave
millions to build schools, colleges, hospitals,
art institutes, parks and many other institutions.
Andrew Carnegie, who admired Spencer, was
the leading philanthropist in the world, and
a major leader against imperialism and warfare.
H. G. Wells was heavily influenced by Darwinist
thoughts, and novelist Jack London wrote stories
of survival that incorporated his views on
social Darwinism.
Japan
Social Darwinism has influenced political,
public health and social movements in Japan
since the late 19th and early 20th century.
Social Darwinism was originally brought to
Japan through the works of Francis Galton
and Ernst Haeckel as well as United States,
British and French Lamarkian eugenic written
studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Eugenism as a science was hotly debated at
the beginning of the 20th century, in Jinsei-Der
Mensch, the first eugenics journal in the
empire. As Japan sought to close ranks with
the west, this practice was adopted wholesale
along with colonialism and its justifications.
China
Social Darwinism was formally introduced to
China through the translation by Yan Fu of
Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, in the course
of an extensive series of translations of
influential Western thought. Yan's translation
strongly impacted Chinese scholars because
he added national elements not found in the
original. He understood Spencer's sociology
as "not merely analytical and descriptive,
but prescriptive as well," and saw Spencer
building on Darwin, whom Yan summarized thus:
Peoples and living things struggle for survival.
At first, species struggle with species; they
as [people] gradually progress, there is a
struggle between one social group and another.
The weak invariably become the prey of the
strong, the stupid invariably become subservient
to the clever."
By the 1920s, social Darwinism found expression
in the promotion of eugenics by the Chinese
sociologist Pan Guangdan. When Chiang Kai-shek
started the New Life movement in 1934, he
. . . harked back to theories of Social Darwinism,
writing that "only those who readapt themselves
to new conditions, day by day, can live properly.
When the life of a people is going through
this process of readaptation, it has to remedy
its own defects, and get rid of those elements
which become useless. Then we call it new
life."
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany's justification for its aggression
was regularly promoted in Nazi propaganda
films depicting scenes such as beetles fighting
in a lab setting to demonstrate the principles
of "survival of the fittest" as depicted in
Alles Leben ist Kampf. Hitler often refused
to intervene in the promotion of officers
and staff members, preferring instead to have
them fight amongst themselves to force the
"stronger" person to prevail—"strength"
referring to those social forces void of virtue
or principle. Key proponents were Alfred Rosenberg,
who was hanged later at Nuremberg.
The argument that Nazi ideology was strongly
influenced by social Darwinist ideas is often
found in historical and social science literature.
For example, the Jewish philosopher and historian
Hannah Arendt analysed the historical development
from a politically indifferent scientific
Darwinism via social Darwinist ethics to racist
ideology.
By 1985, the argument has been taken up by
opponents of evolutionary theory. Such claims
have been presented by creationists such as
Jonathan Sarfati. Intelligent design creationism
supporters have promoted this position as
well. For example, it is a theme in the work
of Richard Weikart, who is a historian at
California State University, Stanislaus, and
a senior fellow for the Center for Science
and Culture of the Discovery Institute. It
is also a main argument in the 2008 intelligent-design/creationist
movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. These
claims are widely criticized within the academic
community. The Anti-Defamation League has
rejected such attempts to link Darwin's ideas
with Nazi atrocities, and has stated that
"Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those
who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous
and trivializes the complex factors that led
to the mass extermination of European Jewry."
Similar criticisms are sometimes applied to
other political or scientific theories that
resemble social Darwinism, for example criticisms
leveled at evolutionary psychology. For example,
a critical reviewer of Weikart's book writes
that "(h)is historicization of the moral framework
of evolutionary theory poses key issues for
those in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology,
not to mention bioethicists, who have recycled
many of the suppositions that Weikart has
traced."
Another example is recent scholarship that
portrays Ernst Haeckel's Monist League as
a mystical progenitor of the Völkisch movement
and, ultimately, of the Nazi Party of Adolf
Hitler. Scholars opposed to this interpretation,
however, have pointed out that the Monists
were freethinkers who opposed all forms of
mysticism, and that their organizations were
immediately banned following the Nazi takeover
in 1933 because of their association with
a wide variety of causes including feminism,
pacifism, human rights, and early gay rights
movements.
Contemporary Proponents of Social Darwinism
The concept of social Darwinism and eugenics,
by those who attribute the term to themselves,
is prevalent within modern Satanism. Social
Darwinist ideas are presented throughout The
Satanic Bible, authored by Anton LaVey, founder
of the Church of Satan and 20th century Satanism.
LaVey describes Satanism as "a religion based
on the universal traits of man," and humans
are described throughout as inherently carnal
and animalistic. Each of the seven deadly
sins is described as part of human's natural
instinct, and are thus advocated. Social Darwinism
is particularly noticeable in The Book of
Satan, where LaVey uses portions of Ragnar
Redbeard's Might is Right, though it also
appears throughout in references to man's
inherent strength and instinct for self-preservation.
LaVeyan Satanism has been described as "institutionalism
of Machiavellian self-interest" because of
many of these themes. The Church of Satan
webpage heading “Satanism: The Feared Religion,"
by Magus Peter H. Gilmore, states, “...contemporary
Satanism[...]is: a brutal religion of elitism
and social Darwinism that seeks to re-establish
the reign of the able over the idiotic...”
and, “Satanists also seek to enhance the
laws of nature by concentrating on fostering
the practice of eugenics.”
Criticism and controversy
Multiple incompatible definitions
Social Darwinism has many definitions, and
some of them are incompatible with each other.
As such, social Darwinism has been criticized
for being an inconsistent philosophy, which
does not lead to any clear political conclusions.
For example, The Concise Oxford Dictionary
of Politics states:
Part of the difficulty in establishing sensible
and consistent usage is that commitment to
the biology of natural selection and to 'survival
of the fittest' entailed nothing uniform either
for sociological method or for political doctrine.
A 'social Darwinist' could just as well be
a defender of laissez-faire as a defender
of state socialism, just as much an imperialist
as a domestic eugenist.
Nazism, eugenics, fascism, imperialism
Social Darwinism was predominantly found in
laissez-faire societies where the prevailing
view was that of an individualist order to
society. As such, social Darwinism supposed
that human progress would generally favor
the most individualistic races, which were
those perceived as stronger. A different form
of social Darwinism was part of the ideological
foundations of Nazism and other fascist movements.
This form did not envision survival of the
fittest within an individualist order of society,
but rather advocated a type of racial and
national struggle where the state directed
human breeding through eugenics. Names such
as "Darwinian collectivism" or "Reform Darwinism"
have been suggested to describe these views,
in order to differentiate them from the individualist
type of social Darwinism.
Some pre-twentieth century doctrines subsequently
described as social Darwinism appear to anticipate
state imposed eugenics and the race doctrines
of Nazism. Critics have frequently linked
evolution, Charles Darwin and social Darwinism
with racialism, nationalism, imperialism and
eugenics, contending that social Darwinism
became one of the pillars of fascism and Nazi
ideology, and that the consequences of the
application of policies of "survival of the
fittest" by Nazi Germany eventually created
a very strong backlash against the theory.
As mentioned above, social Darwinism has often
been linked to nationalism and imperialism.
During the age of New Imperialism, the concepts
of evolution justified the exploitation of
"lesser breeds without the law" by "superior
races." To elitists, strong nations were composed
of white people who were successful at expanding
their empires, and as such, these strong nations
would survive in the struggle for dominance.
With this attitude, Europeans, except for
Christian missionaries, seldom adopted the
customs and languages of local people under
their empires.
Peter Kropotkin – Mutual Aid: A Factor of
Evolution
Peter Kropotkin argued in his 1902 book Mutual
Aid: A Factor of Evolution that Darwin did
not define the fittest as the strongest, or
most clever, but recognized that the fittest
could be those who cooperated with each other.
In many animal societies, "struggle is replaced
by co-operation."
It may be that at the outset Darwin himself
was not fully aware of the generality of the
factor which he first invoked for explaining
one series only of facts relative to the accumulation
of individual variations in incipient species.
But he foresaw that the term [evolution] which
he was introducing into science would lose
its philosophical and its only true meaning
if it were to be used in its narrow sense
only—that of a struggle between separate
individuals for the sheer means of existence.
And at the very beginning of his memorable
work he insisted upon the term being taken
in its "large and metaphorical sense including
dependence of one being on another, and including
not only the life of the individual, but success
in leaving progeny." [Quoting Origin of Species,
chap. iii, p. 62 of first edition.]
While he himself was chiefly using the term
in its narrow sense for his own special purpose,
he warned his followers against committing
the error of overrating its narrow meaning.
In The Descent of Man he gave some powerful
pages to illustrate its proper, wide sense.
He pointed out how, in numberless animal societies,
the struggle between separate individuals
for the means of existence disappears, how
struggle is replaced by co-operation, and
how that substitution results in the development
of intellectual and moral faculties which
secure to the species the best conditions
for survival. He intimated that in such cases
the fittest are not the physically strongest,
nor the cunningest, but those who learn to
combine so as mutually to support each other,
strong and weak alike, for the welfare of
the community. "Those communities," he wrote,
"which included the greatest number of the
most sympathetic members would flourish best,
and rear the greatest number of offspring".
The term, which originated from the narrow
Malthusian conception of competition between
each and all, thus lost its narrowness in
the mind of one who knew Nature.
Noam Chomsky discussed briefly Kropotkin's
views in a July 8, 2011 YouTube video from
Renegade Economist, in which he said Kropotkin
argued
...the exact opposite [of Social Darwinism].
He argued that on Darwinian grounds, you would
expect cooperation and mutual aid to develop
leading towards community, workers' control
and so on. Well, you know, he didn't prove
his point. It's at least as well argued as
Herbert Spencer is...
See also
References
Primary sources
Darwinism: Critical Reviews from Dublin Review|Dublin
Review, Edinburgh Review, Quarterly Review
reprints 19th century reviews and essays
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species
by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation
of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
London: John Murray. 
Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, and Selection
in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray. 
Fisher, Joseph. The History of Landholding
in Ireland. London: Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society. pp. 249–250. 
Fiske, John. Darwinism and Other Essays
Secondary sources
Bannister, Robert C. Social Darwinism: Science
and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought
Bannister, Robert C. Sociology and Scientism:
The American Quest for Objectivity, 1880-1940
Bernardini, J.-M. Le darwinisme social en
France. Fascination et rejet d'une idéologie,
Paris, CNRS Edition, 1997.
Boller, Paul F. Jr. American Thought in Transition:
The Impact of Evolutionary Naturalism, 1865-1900
Bowler, Peter J.. Evolution: The History of
an Idea. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23693-9. 
Crook, D. Paul. Darwinism, War and History :
The Debate over the Biology of War from the
'Origin of Species' to the First World War
Crook, Paul. "Social Darwinism in European
and American Thought, 1860-1945" The Australian
Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 45,
1999
Crook, Paul. Darwin's Coat-Tails: Essays on
Social Darwinism
Degler, Carl N. In Search of Human Nature:
The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American
Social Thought.
Desmond, Adrian; Moore, James. Darwin. London:
Michael Joseph, Penguin Group. ISBN 0-7181-3430-3. 
Dickens, Peter. Social Darwinism: Linking
Evolutionary Thought to Social Theory.
Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an
Idea in America ch 7
Hawkins, Mike. Social Darwinism in European
and American Thought 1860-1945: Nature and
Model and Nature as Threat. London: Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-57434-X. 
Hodge, Jonathan and Gregory Radick. The Cambridge
Companion to Darwin
Hodgson, Geoffrey M.. "Social Darwinism in
Anglophone Academic Journals: A Contribution
to the History of the Term". Vol. 17 No. 4:
428–463. ISSN 0952-1909. Retrieved 2010-02-17.
"Social Darwinism, as almost everyone knows,
is a Bad Thing." 
Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American
Thought. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press. 
Hofstadter, Richard. Eric Foner, ed. Social
Darwinism in American Thought. Boston: Beacon
Press. ISBN 0807055034. 
Jones, Leslie, Social Darwinism Revisited
History Today, Vol. 48, August 1998
Kaye, Howard L. The Social Meaning of Modern
Biology: From Social Darwinism to Sociobiology.
Further reading
Bannister, Robert. Social Darwinism: Science
and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought.
Temple University Press. ISBN 0-87722-566-4. 
Sammut-Bonnici, T. & Wensley, R., 'Darwinism,
Probability and Complexity: Transformation
and Change Explained through the Theories
of Evolution', ' 'International Journal of
Management Reviews' ', 4(3) pp. 291–315.
External links
Social Darwinism on ThinkQuest
In the name of Darwin - criticism of social
Darwinism
