10/5 topic: About Social Darwinism

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Social Darwinism is a belief, popular in the late Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die. The theory was chiefly expounded by Herbert Spencer, whose ethical philosophies always held an elitist view and received a boost from the application of Darwinian ideas such as adaptation and natural selection.

Spencer and Social Darwinism

Herbert Spencer, the father of Social Darwinism as an ethical theory, was thinking in terms of elitist, "might makes right" sorts of views long before Darwin published his theory. However, Spencer quickly adapted Darwinian ideas to his own ethical theories. The concept of adaptation allowed him to claim that the rich and powerful were better adapted to the social and economic climate of the time, and the concept of natural selection allowed him to argue that it was natural, normal, and proper for the strong to thrive at the expense of the weak. After all, he claimed, that is exactly what goes on in nature every day.

However, Spencer did not just present his theories as placing humans on a parallel with nature. Not only was survival of the fittest natural, but it was also morally correct. Indeed, some extreme Social Darwinists argued that it was morally incorrect to assist those weaker than oneself, since that would be promoting the survival and possible reproduction of someone who was fundamentally unfit.

Applications of Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism was used to justify numerous exploits which we classify as of dubious moral value today. Colonialism was seen as natural and inevitable, and given justification through Social Darwinian ethics - people saw natives as being weaker and more unfit to survive, and therefore felt justified in seizing land and resources. Social Darwinism applied to military action as well; the argument went that the strongest military would win, and would therefore be the most fit. Casualties on the losing side, of course, were written off as the natural result of their unfit status. Finally, it gave the ethical nod to brutal colonial governments who used oppressive tactics against their subjects.

Social Darwinism applied to a social context too, of course. It provided a justification for the more exploitative forms of capitalism in which workers were paid sometimes pennies a day for long hours of backbreaking labor. Social Darwinism also justified big business' refusal to acknowledge labor unions and similar organizations, and implied that the rich need not donate money to the poor or less fortunate, since such people were less fit anyway.

In its most extreme forms, Social Darwinism has been used to justify eugenics programs aimed at weeding "undesirable" genes from the population; such programs were sometimes accompanied by sterilization laws directed against "unfit" individuals. The American eugenics movement was relatively popular between about 1910-1930, during which 24 states passed sterilization laws and Congress passed a law restricting immigration from certain areas deemed to be unfit. Social Darwinist ideas, though in different forms, were also applied by the Nazi party in Germany to justify their eugenics programs.

Positive Results of Social Darwinism

Not all Social Darwinists were quite so extreme, and Social Darwinism was not the only justification of colonialism, imperialism, and other intrusive exploits (the "white man's burden" was another, almost completely opposite, justification). In fact, the early Social Darwinists, who regarded the theory as a logical extension of laissez-faire capitalism, would have been appalled at the use of the concept to promote state-run eugenics programs.

Though its moral basis is now generally opposed, Social Darwinism did have some favorable effects. Belief in Social Darwinism tended to discourage wanton handouts to the poor, favoring instead providing resources for the fittest of all walks of life to use, or choosing specific, genuinely deserving people as recipients of help and support. Some major capitalists, such as Andrew Carnegie, combined philanthropy with Social Darwinism; he used his vast fortune to set up hundreds of libraries and other public institutions, including a university, for the benefit of those who would choose to avail themselves of such resources. He opposed direct and indiscriminate handouts to the poor because he felt that this favored the undeserving and the deserving person equally.

The Problem with Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism's philosophical problems are rather daunting, and fatal to it as a basic theory (though some have applied similar ideas). First, it makes the faulty assumption that what is natural is equivalent to what is morally correct. In other words, it falls prey to the belief that just because something takes place in nature, it must be a moral paradigm for humans to follow.

This problem in Social Darwinist thinking stems from the fact that the theory falls into the "naturalistic fallacy", which consists of trying to derive an ought statement from an is statement. For example, the fact that you stubbed your toe this morning does not logically imply that you ought to have stubbed your toe! The same argument applies to the Social Darwinists' attempt to extend natural processes into human social structures. This is a common problem in philosophy, and it is commonly stated that it is absolutely impossible to derive ought from is (though this is still sometimes disputed); at the very least, it is impossible to do it so simply and directly as the Social Darwinists did. (See also Evolution and Ethics.)

Social Darwinism vs. Darwinism

Many negative reactions to Darwinism come from the confusion of Darwinism as a scientific theory with Social Darwinism as an ethical theory. In reality, the two have very little in common, aside from their name and a few basic concepts, which Social Darwinists misapplied. Unfortunately, much of today's opposition to the application of Darwinian thinking to human behavior comes from a fear of Social Darwinism and its implications for many of today's moral codes. However, Social Darwinism in its basic (and extremist) forms are based on a logical fallacy, and do not really follow from Darwinian thinking in any way.

Looking Further: Links and References

The following links and references are useful in the study of Social Darwinism and its implications, results, and applications to social policy.

• Books
  • Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945: Nature As Model and Nature As Threat by Mike Hawkins
  • Social Darwinism: Linking Evolutionary Thought to Social Theory by Peter Dickens
  • Social Darwinism in American Thought by Richard Hofstadter

• Websites
  • Herbert Spencer: Social Darwinism from Modern History Sourcebook
  • Does Evolution Make Might Right? by John Wilkins from Talk.Origins
  • Social Darwinism and Elitism
  • Herbert Spencer's Philosophy

Features » March 30, 2010

Finding the Forgotten Man

Tea Party populism and the return of Social Darwinism.

By Christopher Malone

 

Looking for the man at liberty to love himself above all else.

Social welfare through state intervention replaced the survival of the fittest with the survival of the unfit, Sumner believed. And that was disastrous for civilization.

Tags    conservatism politics social movements

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One thing is certain about this fall’s election: The field upon which American politics will play out is a populist one.

Populism has long been part of the American political tradition, dating at least to the political ascent of Andrew Jackson in the 1820s. Its appeal is deceptively simple. The details vary but populism’s basic, urgent message remains the same: The game has been rigged by a small group of powerful people, and something must be done. Now.

What makes the current moment so rare is that both left- and right-wing populism have surfaced at the same time. Which side’s message wins out may determine the trajectory of the next era in American political life.

With its recent national convention and the emergence of a de facto leader in Sarah Palin, the Tea Party movement has sent waves of populist energy through the American electorate. The movement’s agenda is not yet fully formed, and it consists mostly of a vitriolic disdain for the Obama administration. Much work lies ahead in terms of developing its message, logic, strategy, tactics and constituency.

But if the Tea Party is a young movement finding its footing, its ideological underpinning is old indeed. The right-wing populism manifested in the movement is essentially the same old Social Darwinism that became a kind of sacred truth in American society in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Father of modern conservatism

Modern American conservatism formed in the early years of the Cold War, when New Deal liberalism seemed triumphant. Though it has many tributaries, the mainstream movement consists of several core ideas: that societies are ordered in classes based on divine intent and/or personal responsibility; that property and freedom are inseparable; that markets should be unfettered from government regulation; that traditions must be adhered to for social stability; and that societies should evolve slowly.

All of modern conservatism’s founders articulated these principles in their writings. Perhaps the most influential work in conservatism’s late-twentieth-century ascent was Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative, published in 1960. But one of the original progenitors of contemporary social and political conservative thought—William Graham Sumner (1840-1910)—is nowhere to be found in lists of modern conservatism’s canonical texts. The reason is simple. His philosophy is so harsh and reactionary that to embrace it openly would be political suicide. Nonetheless, his ideas are everywhere in the right-wing populism that has gained ground during the last year.

Sumner believed that the fundamental law of the universe was survival of the fittest. So progressivism or socialism or any ideology that aimed to “save individuals from any of the difficulties or hardships of the struggle for existence” was pure folly. Like today’s right-wing populist revolt, Sumner’s brand of Social Darwinism propagated an unabashed but seamless defense of two groups that would seem to be at odds: the Captain of Industry and the Forgotten Man.

For Sumner, both of these figurative “men” had more to fear from the paternal state than they did from each other. Take the Captain of Industry. For Sumner, society depended on the creation of individual wealth; thus, social advancement for all depended on the financial abilities of the few. “If we should set a limit to the accumulation of wealth,” he wrote, “we should say to our most valued producers, ‘We do not want you to do us the services which you best understand how to perform, beyond a certain point.’ It would be like killing off our generals in a war.”

Sumner believed hereditary wealth was a product of the laws of nature as well, and he defended it vigorously. Since the millionaire and his offspring were responsible for enriching their communities through their wealth production, personal wealth had to stay in the family. To do otherwise was a state-sponsored assault on personal liberty.

But if Sumner strongly defended the wealthy, his defense of the Forgotten Man—who prizes liberty, not wealth, above all—was equally fervent. “It is plain enough that the Forgotten Man and the Forgotten Woman are the very life and substance of society,” he wrote. “They are the ones who ought to be first and always remembered. They are always forgotten by sentimentalists, philanthropists, reformers, enthusiasts, and every description of speculator in sociology, political economy or political science.”

A free man in a free state had only one major duty, according to Sumner: “to take care of his or her own self. That is a social duty.” If one could not take care of oneself, that was of no consequence to others.

Sumner believed that the causes of poverty were misunderstood and the policy of state intervention was deeply misguided. Social welfare through state intervention replaced the survival of the fittest with the survival of the unfit. And that was disastrous for civilization.

The road to Sarah Palin

The New Deal was about many things, but at its core it sought to rearrange the relationship—formed in the Gilded Age of the late-nineteenth century—between the government, the Forgotten Man, and the Captain of Industry. With the help of an economic crisis, Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government intervention was necessary to curb the Captain of Industry’s greed and irresponsibility.

Over the last four decades, conservatives have successfully mounted a counter-argument to this New Deal narrative. The key to their success has been Sumner’s Forgotten Man, the same mythical figure that Tea Partiers have been fighting for. The left underestimates the power of their grievances at its peril.

In the world according to Tea Party protesters, poverty is not about the structural deficiencies of capitalism; it is about personal idleness and extravagance. Welfare is not about alleviating poverty; it is about doing away with a government handout that breeds dependency. Gay marriage is not about “equal rights”; it is about government telling you what values you should be compelled to uphold. The estate tax on the super-rich is not about the fair redistribution of wealth; it is a final assault—a “death tax”—on the liberty of the dearly departed.

In their world, the Forgotten Man and Woman are constantly (in Sumner’s words) “threatened by every extension of the paternal theory of government.” This is the logic of Sumner’s Social Darwinism. Its broad appeal lies in an elegant simplicity: government always crushes the individual’s liberty.

Combating Social Darwinism

Conventional wisdom holds that Barack Obama is not a natural populist, that this cerebral former law professor doesn’t know how to push populist buttons. That may be true. But Obama understands that for decades the American public has been fed a steady diet of Sumner’s Social Darwinism. Today, fewer Americans trust government than at any point in modern history—and this is after a financial meltdown. Making the case that government can be trusted to stand between the Forgotten Man and the corporate raiders who caused this mess is not easy. After a year in which the discussion turned on government intervention in many aspects of American society, it was only a matter of time before we saw the return of Social Darwinism.

Despite Americans’ lack of trust in government, Obama and his supporters should take comfort in two things. First, whether or not they believe that government actually works, the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that government should solve big problems. The doctrine of “mind your own business” is so far out of the mainstream today that few could imagine government not involved in social welfare programs like education and healthcare. The era of big government is here to stay.

Second, those New Deal policies that were directed at FDR’s “forgotten” men and women eventually created the biggest middle class in the history of human civilization. Though it has lost ground, the middle class is also here to stay. Defeating Social Darwinism means framing every policy decision around that class. Doing so will require more left-leaning populism from this president. He must persuade Americans that all the taken-for-granted fundamentals of modern middle-class life—healthcare, home mortgages, college education for the kids, etc.—are jeopardized by the power and greed of the new Captains of Industry.

To move the country forward, in other words, Obama must learn from the battles that FDR fought in the 1930s. Today, the stakes are just as high and the challenges are just as great. There is hope to be found in this fact: FDR’s successes created the most prosperous three decades in American history. Obama can do the same. But where there is a way, there isn’t necessarily a will. Time will tell.

Republican Economics as Social Darwinism

 

Read More: John Boehner , Mitch McConnell , Republicans , Robert Reich , Politics News

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John Boehner, the Republican House leader who will become Speaker if Democrats lose control of the House in the upcoming midterms, recently offered his solution to the current economic crisis: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, lead a more moral life."

Actually, those weren't Boehner's words. They were uttered by Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary, millionaire industrialist Andrew Mellon, after the Great Crash of 1929.

But they might as well have been Boehner's because Hoover's and Mellon's means of purging the rottenness was by doing exactly what Boehner and his colleagues are now calling for: shrink government, cut the federal deficit, reduce the national debt, and balance the budget.

And we all know what happened after 1929, at least until FDR reversed course.

Boehner and other Republicans would even like to roll back the New Deal and get rid of Barack Obama's smaller deal health-care law.

The issue isn't just economic. We're back to tough love. The basic idea is to force people to live with the consequences of whatever happens to them.

In the late 19th century it was called Social Darwinism. Only the fittest should survive, and any effort to save the less fit will undermine the moral fiber of society.

Republicans have wanted to destroy Social Security since it was invented in 1935 by my predecessor as labor secretary, the great Frances Perkins. Remember George W. Bush's proposal to privatize it? Had America agreed with him, millions of retirees would have been impoverished in 2008 when the stock market imploded.

Of course Republicans don't talk openly about destroying Social Security, because it's so popular. The new Republican "pledge" promises only to put it on a "fiscally responsible footing." Translated: we'll privatize it.

Look, I used to be a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. Believe me when I tell you Social Security is basically okay. It may need a little fine tuning but I guarantee you'll receive your Social Security check by the time you retire even if that's forty years from now.

Medicare, on the other hand, is a huge problem and its projected deficits are truly scary. But that's partly because George W. Bush created a new drug benefit that's hugely profitable for Big Phrma (something the Republican pledge conspicuously fails to address). The underlying problem, though, is health-care costs are soaring.

Repealing the new health-care legislation would cause health-care costs to rise even faster. In extending coverage, it allows 30 million Americans to get preventive care. Take it away and they'll end up in far more expensive emergency rooms.

The new law could help control rising health costs. It calls for medical "exchange" that will give people valuable information about health costs and benefits. The public should know certain expensive procedures only pad the paychecks of specialists while driving up the costs of insurance policies that offer them.

Republicans also hate unemployment insurance. They've voted against every extension because, they say, it coddles the unemployed and keeps them from taking available jobs.

That's absurd. There are still 5 job seekers for every job opening, and unemployment insurance in most states pays only a small fraction of the full-time wage.

Social insurance is fundamental to a civil society. It's also good economics because it puts money in peoples' pockets who then turn around and buy the things that others produce, thereby keeping those others in jobs.

We've fallen into the bad habit of calling these programs "entitlements," which sounds morally suspect -- as if a more responsible public wouldn't depend on them. If the Great Recession has taught us anything, it should be that.anyone can take a fall through no fault of their own.

Finally, like Hoover and Mellon, Republicans want to cut the deficit and balance the budget at a time when a large portion of the workforce is idle.

This defies economic logic. When consumers aren't spending, businesses aren't investing and exports can't possibly fill the gap, and when state governments are slashing their budgets, the federal government has to spend more. Otherwise, the Great Recession will turn into exactly what Hoover and Mellon ushered in -- a seemingly endless Great Depression.

It's also cruel. Cutting the deficit and balancing the budget any time soon will subject tens of millions of American families to unnecessary hardship and throw even more into poverty.

Herbert Hoover and Andrew Mellon thought their economic policies would purge the rottenness out of the system and lead to a more moral life. Instead, it purged morality out of the system and lead to a more rotten life for millions of Americans.

And that's exactly what Republicans are offering yet again.

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

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1.

사회다윈주의의 정의

다윈주의와 사회다윈주의의 연관성

사회다윈주의의 적용과 응용

사회다윈주의의 긍정적 측면과 문제점들

2.

Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative와 보수주의 이념의 공통점

섬너의 사상- Social welfare through state intervention replaced the survival of the fittest with the survival of the unfit.

루즈벨트와 섬너의 Forgotten Man의 차이점

Tea party의 이념이 사회다윈주의에 기반하고 있다는 주장의 근거

뉴딜정책에 대한 상반된 평가와 미국중산층의 확산

3.

미국공화당 경제정책의 사회다윈주의적 기반

사회안정망, 의료보험, 사회보험, 긴축재정에 대한 공화당의 입장과 그것이 민중들의 삶에 갖는 의미.

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1.
사회다윈주의의 정의
다윈주의와 사회다윈주의의 연관성-공동토론
사회다윈주의의 적용과 응용-에드윈
사회다윈주의의 긍정적 측면과 문제점들-베로니카

2.
Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative에 대한 해설, 보수주의 이념의 공통점-데미

섬너의 사상- Social welfare through state intervention replaced the survival of the
fittest with the survival of the unfit.설명 및
루즈벨트와 섬너의 Forgotten Man의 차이점-미니

Tea party의 이념이 사회다윈주의에 기반하고 있다는 주장의 근거-테리

뉴딜정책에 대한 상반된 평가와 미국중산층의 확산-하나

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3.
미국공화당 경제정책의 사회다윈주의적 기반-공동토론

사회안정망, 의료보험, 사회보험, 긴축재정에 대한 공화당의 입장과 그것이 민중들의 삶에 갖는 의미.-수잔