The cruel (and destructive) belief that the weak be allowed to sink, and the strong be allowed to swim, in order for a society to flourish.
Social Darwinism is a classic example of a gluttonous ideology. Rooted in a proper respect for self-interest, courage and other vigorous virtues its fatal flaw is that it is not moderated by any compassion for vulnerable people.
Associated with Herbert Spencer, Social Darwinism is derived from biological Darwinism. Spencer taught that only the fittest should survive if civilisation was to grow stronger and wealthier. Social Darwinists – believing that governments should not intervene in societies to protect people from the consequences of their actions – hold the polar opposite worldview to sixties socialists.
Social Darwinism has most influenced times ruled by zero-sum game thinking. Such periods wrongly see people and nations competing with each other for finite resources. In such contests the fittest swim and prosper – the unfit sink and die. Very unfairly, Thatcherism was accused of being a sink-and-swim ideology.
Cheap shots at Thatcherism mask the inspiration that Social Darwinism gave to some of history’s really unsavoury movements. For example, Social Darwinism informed Nazi-era eugenics and its attempts to prevent (what Hitler called) ‘feeble-minded’ people from reproducing. Nazi Germany banned ‘unfit’ people from marrying, sterilised others and used euthanasia against the oldest and most disabled.
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