Social Darwinism is not any single well defined concept, but various ideologies that seek to apply biological concepts associated with Darwinism or other evolutionary theories to sociology, economics and politics, often with the assumption that conflict or cooperation between groups in society leads to social progress as superior groups outcompete inferior ones.
The name social Darwinism is a modern name given to various theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, which, it is alleged, sought to apply biological concepts to sociology and politics.[1][2] The term social Darwinism gained widespread currency when used in 1944 to oppose these earlier concepts. Today, because of the negative connotations of the theory of social Darwinism, especially after the atrocities of the Second World War (including the Holocaust), few people would describe themselves as social Darwinists and the term is generally seen as pejorative.[3]
The term social Darwinism is often used to describe the use of concepts of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism; but similar concepts have motivated ideas of eugenics, racism, imperialism,[4] fascism, Nazism and struggle between national or racial groups.[5][6]
Creationists have often maintained that social Darwinism leading to policies that the weak should perish is a logical entailment of "Darwinism"; biologists and historians have stated that this is the naturalistic fallacy of claiming that evolutionary theory describing what is as a moral guide to what ought to be. Social Darwinism owed more to Protestant Nonconformism, genetics and to Herbert Spencer's ideas than to Charles Darwin's research.[7] While most scholars recognize some historical links between 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.[8]
Scholars debate the extent to which these various 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.[9] 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,[10] but Spencer's Lamarckian evolutionary ideas about society were published before Darwin first published his theory, and both promoted moral values. Spencer supported laissez faire free enterprise on the basis of his Lamarckian belief that struggle for survival spurred self-improvement which could be inherited.[11]