Social Darwinism
Statement of the Issue
Beginning with a discussion of Social Darwinism's inherent logical fallacy, this study examines whether or not wealthy industrialists of the nineteenth century actually practiced what Social Darwinism called for. By considering the history of the concept and its relation to capitalism, it becomes clear that not only did wealthy industrialists practice Social Darwinism, but that they embraced it precisely because it provided a justification for the unethical business practices they were already engaged in.
Statement of the Issue
Social Darwinism was a major force in the political, economic, and social landscape of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, but it represents something of a conundrum for the historian attempting to determine whether or not the wealthy industrialists who were proponents of Social Darwinism actually practiced what they preached. The difficulty stems from the fact that Social Darwinism is itself an example of a formal fallacy, namely, the appeal to nature. In short, proponents of Social Darwinism argued that because nature demonstrates evolution through natural selection resulting in a kind of "survival of the fittest," this necessarily means that the same kind of ruthless competition is the ideal form of social organization, because it supposedly "leads to both material and social progress" (Bannister, 1993, p. 115, Klein, 2003, p. 387). This is an invalid argument because whether or not something exists in nature has no bearing on whether it is moral, immoral, or good or bad at achieving a specific goal. That there is "an obvious analogy between competition in biological and economic systems" has no bearing on whether or not the latter is desirable, and in fact, history has shown that the encouragement of this form of competition in society does not lead to social progress, but rather encourages social deterioration and reduces material progress for all but the most powerful...
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