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Social Darwinism is a set of theories which proponents argue govern the natural sociological relations of humanity; these theories are derived from Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Critics argue that the aim of Social Darwinism is to legitimize social inequality. The term is credited to Herbert Spencer, though his ideas were actually common currency some time before Darwin published his theory. In Progress: Its Law and Cause (1857), for example, Spencer argued:
- "this law of organic progress is the law of all progress. Whether it be in the development of the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, the development of Society, of Government, ..., this same evolution of the simple into the complex, through a process of continuous differentiation, holds throughout."
Spencer's work also served to revive the ideas of Hobbes and Malthus. Malthus's 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population, for example, argued that as increasing population must outgrow its food supply, it was "natural", and inevitable, to allow the weakest to starve. Some historians have suggested that the Malthusian theory and similar concepts were used by the British to justify the continued export of agricultural produce from Ireland, even as the Irish were suffering from famine, in particular the Great Famine of 1845-1849.
Jonathan Swift savagely satirized this sort of "scientific" reasoning in his essay A Modest Proposal, pointing out that advocating cannibalism would have similar "beneficial" effects in controlling overpopulation.
These ideas have been discredited on many grounds: first, they bear little or no relation to the real science of evolution, having simply borrowed and misinterpreted a few of its ideas. "Survival of the fittest", for example, was used by Darwin and other biologists in a very narrow sense to explain why certain traits of animals evolved; however, the popular misconception was that "fitness" was associated with "progress" or "advancement" or "superiority", and that the inferior were simply abandoned. In fact, those who are best-adapted to pass on their genes often do so through some sort of cooperative arrangement or even an equivalent of self-sacrifice for the next generation. See, for example, Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation.
Darwin's work, furthermore, never committed the naturalistic fallacy of assuming that the existence of such natural processes implied that it was morally right to encourage them, nor did he ever attempt to extend his theories from biological systems to social systems, which is a leap far beyond what is supported by the science.
In 1996, the debate was powerfully advanced by the publication of Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, wherein the author made a compelling argument, amply supported by data, that all observed differences of technological and social development among populations resulted from environmental factors.
Because Social Darwinism came to be associated with racism, imperialism, eugenics, and pseudoscience, such criticisms are sometimes applied (and misapplied) to any other political or scientific theory that brings Social Darwinism to mind. Such criticisms are often levelled, for example, on evolutionary psychology, even though its scientific basis is stronger and it makes no political or moral claims. Similarly, capitalism, especially laissez-faire capitalism, is often equated with Social Darwinism because they adopt a "sink or swim" attitude toward economic activity. Capitalists argue that since there is plenty of work to be done, their economics have nothing to do with "letting the weak starve". Likewise, other individualist political movements are often attacked by calling their views "Social Darwinism" whether they actually espouse such theories or not.
See also Evolution of societies, Sociobiology, Evolutionary psychology.
Contrast with Peter Kropotkin Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, social ecology
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