SOCIAL DARWINISM

Social Darwinism was a prominent ideology in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries that emerged when biologists and social thinkers tried to apply the biological theories of Charles Darwin (1809–1882) to human society. Social Darwinists believed that humans were subject to scientific laws, including Darwinian natural selection and the struggle for existence. They viewed human competition as a beneficent force bringing progress. However serious differences emerged among those who tried to formulate social theories based on Darwinism. One of the most controversial disputes among social Darwinists was whether humans should model their societies on nature or use scientific knowledge to vanquish nature. Specifically the question was whether humans should sharpen or soften the struggle for existence. Though most social Darwinists never admitted it, this fundamental question was not tractable scientifically, but depended on one's ethical perspective, because Darwinian processes could not predict future outcomes nor provide moral guidance. Not all Darwinists embraced social Darwinism, of course, and some promoted eugenics as a way to evade the human struggle for existence.

From Malthus to Darwin

Tracing the origins of social Darwinism is complicated, because many ideas associated with social Darwinism—such as laissez-faire economics, militarism, and racism—predated Darwin and influenced the formulation of his biological theory. Probably the most important of the forerunners of social Darwinism was Thomas Robert Malthus (1766—1834), whose population principle claimed that human populations tend to expand faster than the food supply. This population imbalance, according to Malthus, inevitably produces human misery, famine, and death. Darwin forthrightly incorporated Malthus's ideas, along with other concepts from nineteenth-century economics, into his biological theory. However he also gave a new twist to Malthus that would be important in the rise of social Darwinism. While Malthus considered the human misery caused by overpopulation entirely harmful and lamentable (though inevitable), Darwin construed it as beneficial and progressive, because it drove the evolutionary process, producing new species. The rise of Darwinian theory in the late-nineteenth century gave greater currency to Malthus's ideas, which became prominent in social Darwinist circles.

Darwin was clearly a social Darwinist, because he believed that the Malthusian population principle demonstrated the necessity of a struggle for existence among humans, leading to competition both within and between human societies. However these two levels of competition could work at cross-purposes, presenting Darwin (and other social Darwinists) with a dilemma. Which was more important: individual or group competition? Most social Darwinists—including Darwin—insisted that both operated simultaneously, though they did not always agree on which was more important. Darwin believed that individual competition among humans manifested itself primarily as peaceful economic competition, while group competition often brought warfare and racial conflict.

Another important plank of social Darwinism that Darwin propagated was human inequality. Natural selection could only function if there were significant differences between organisms. Also, in order to make their theory of human evolution more plausible, Darwinists had to emphasize the tremendous diversity within the human species, while showing the proximity of humans to other species. This led them to stress the differences between races, and the proximity of "primitive" races to primates. Darwin specifically claimed that "savage" races were biologically inferior to Europeans. He believed their intellectual prowess was far below that of Europeans, and because he considered moral character a hereditary trait, he also accused them of being biologically inferior in their moral character.

In most of his writings Darwin confined himself to describing the process of human evolution. However at times he became prescriptive, proposing public policy based on his theory. He generally supported laissez-faire economics, because it would promote competition among individuals, allowing the "fittest" to succeed. In a private letter he expressed concern that labor unions were deleterious, because they opposed individual competition. He also used his theory to justify national and racial competition, which was reflected in British and other European attempts to dominate the globe through imperialism. In The Descent of Man Darwin stated, "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races" (Darwin 1981, vol. 1, p. 201). Darwin, however, did make it clear that despite his view that wars have played a crucial role in human evolution, he hoped they would cease in the future.

Classic Social Darwinism

While justifying and supporting human competition as biologically beneficial, Darwin did not believe that the human struggle for existence was completely ruthless. He thought that human morality—which he explained as a product of the struggle for existence—tempered the struggle, at least within societies. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), whom Darwin and many of his contemporaries considered a great philosopher, but whose star has waned since, likewise argued that ethics was the pinnacle of human evolution. However, like Darwin, he thought that too much altruism would be detrimental to humanity, because it would diminish human competition.

Spencer's role in the development of social Darwinism has been hotly debated, because before Darwin published his theory, Spencer already believed in biological evolution and embraced a competitive ethos and laissez-faire economics. However Spencer's pre-Darwinian ideas about evolution were shaped by Lamarckism, which taught that organisms passed acquired traits on to their offspring. Spencer's pre-Darwinian view of competition was not really social Darwinism. After 1859 Spencer integrated natural selection and the struggle for existence into his social views, thus espousing a form of social Darwinism. Like Darwin, he did not think the human struggle for existence had to be violent. On the contrary, he thought the struggle was becoming more and more peaceful as society progressed.

Not all social Darwinists thought warfare was becoming obsolete, as Spencer did. William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), a prominent American sociologist who pioneered social applications of Darwinism, claimed that Darwinism proved the inevitability of war. He even stated that "nothing but might has ever made right" (Hawkins 1997, p. 117), a position that Darwin rejected, but that several social Darwinists embraced. Even so, Sumner advised avoiding war if possible, so he was far from being a rabid militarist. However some social Darwinists, including the German general Friedrich von Bernhardi (1849–1930), author of the best-selling book, Germany and the Coming War (1912), used social Darwinism to promote militarism.

Racial competition was an even more prominent and widespread theme in social Darwinist thought than was national competition. Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), the leading Darwinian biologist in Germany in the late-nineteenth century, was even more racist than Darwin. He argued that the distinctions between the human races were so great that humans should be divided into twelve separate species, which he placed in four separate genera. These races, he claimed, were in a competitive conflict that would only end with the extermination of the least fit races. Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838–1909), a law professor at the University of Graz in Austria, published one of the most extensive treatments of this theory in The Racial Struggle (1883), a term that became popular among social Darwinists in the 1890s and first decades of the twentieth century. Gumplowicz did not consider races a biological entity at all, however, as did most later racial thinkers, but rather he stressed their cultural construction. Nonetheless he argued that races are locked in an ineluctable Darwinian struggle for existence, and he believed that the ethnic conflicts within the Austro-Hungarian Empire were part of this universal struggle.

Another influential social Darwinist in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries who emphasized the racial struggle for existence was Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936), who exerted greater influence in Germany than in his native France. Lapouge was worried that certain "inferior" European races were displacing the "superior" forms. He wanted to supplement the racial struggle with eugenics. He hoped to replace the slogan of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, fraternity—with a more "scientific" triad—determinism, inequality, and selection. He warned in 1887, "In the next century people will be slaughtered by the millions for the sake of one or two degrees on the cephalic index [i.e., cranial measurements]. ... the superior races will substitute themselves by force for the human groups retarded in evolution, and the last sentimentalists will witness the copious extermination of entire peoples" (Hecht 2000, p. 287).

Social Darwinist racism also found much support in Britain and the United States. Walter Bagehot (1826–1877), one of the first writers in Britain to apply Darwinism to politics, thought racial competition was a blessing to the human race, stimulating progress. He asserted that even though some races may not accept the superiority of the European race, "we need not take account of the mistaken ideas of unfit men and beaten races" (Hawkins 1997, p. 70). Karl Pearson (1857–1936), a leading British biologist, wanted to mitigate individual competition to increase national and racial vitality. He promoted eugenics as a way to give the British a competitive advantage in the racial struggle, and he supported the extermination of other races to make room for British settlement. In 1916 Madison Grant (1865–1937), a well-connected lawyer who served as president of the New York Zoological Society, published The Passing of the Great White Race. The preface to his book was written by one of the leading scientists of his time, Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857–1935), who was both a professor at Columbia University and president of the American Museum of Natural History. In his book Grant proposed using immigration restrictions and eugenics to restore the vitality of the "Great White Race," which was threatened with biological decline. Pearson and Grant were by no means idiosyncratic in supporting eugenics within their countries to strengthen their nation or race to compete successfully in the wider national or racial struggle for existence.

Conflicting Perspectives

One of the striking things about nineteenth-century social Darwinism was the variety of political positions that could use social Darwinist arguments to buttress their positions. British liberals—like Darwin—could use the theory to support laissez-faire economics and imperialism. But some non-Marxian socialists thought social Darwinism was on their side. For example, the physician Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899), one of the earliest and most famous Darwinian popularizers in Germany, argued that individual competition was essential for human advancement. However, he denied that the capitalist system was best in promoting competition. Capitalism, he thought, skewed the struggle for existence, because those who inherited capital would have an unfair advantage over those from poor families. Büchner suggested eliminating the inheritance of capital to level the playing field, so one's biological traits and abilities would be the only factors determining success or failure. Similar arguments were advanced by prominent Fabian socialists in Britain, such as Sidney Webb (1859–1947), and by the Labour Party leader, Ramsey MacDonald (1866–1937), who both promoted their socialist ideas as the logical outcome of Darwinian theory.

Though appropriated by scholars and politicians embracing a wide variety of political positions, social Darwinism would have its greatest impact on the world stage through the political power exerted by a fanatical social Darwinist whose racist brand of social Darwinism would drive him to unleash World War II in Europe. In Mein Kampf (1925–1927) Adolf Hitler argued that racial competition was a part of the universal struggle for existence, which destroys the weak and unfit. Hitler believed that morality consisted in cooperating with nature in destroying the weak, so the healthy, "superior" individuals could triumph.

Social Darwinism declined in popularity in the mid-twentieth century, and not only because of its association with the Nazis. Biological explanations for human behavior gave way in the mid-twentieth century to environmental explanations. Behaviorism dominated psychology in the 1950s, cultural relativism dominated anthropology, and Marxism and other non-Marxist forms of economic and environmental determinism displaced biological determinism in the social sciences. By the 1960s biological determinism had almost completely disappeared from serious scholarly work. After Richard Hofstadter wrote the first major historical work titled Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944), the term social Darwinism was generally used disparagingly.

In the 1970s a new movement within the scientific community emerged that reinvigorated biological determinism. Edward O. Wilson provoked intense controversy with the publication of his book, Sociobiology (1975). Many accused Wilson of resurrecting social Darwinism, but he and supporting colleagues denied the charge. Indeed Wilson did embrace some of the positions of earlier social Darwinists (for example, his stress on biological determinism, the importance of Darwinian selection on human behavior, and so on), but he did not embrace the crude nationalism and racialism that Hofstadter identified as leading characteristics of social Darwinism.

RICHARD WEIKART

SEE ALSO Christian Perspectives;Darwin, Charles;Dominance;Eugenics;Holocaust;Population;Race;Sociobiology;Spencer, Herbert.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bannister, Robert. (1979). Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bannister challenges Hofstadter's thesis by claiming that the influence of social Darwinism was minimal. His unconvincing argument is that social Darwinism was merely a straw man created by progressives who opposed a competitive ethos.

Clark, Linda. (1984). Social Darwinism in France. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Clark's work shows the varieties of social Darwinism in France, especially emphasizing what she calls reform Darwinism.

Darwin, Charles. (1981). Descent Of Man. 2 Vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Degler, Carl N. (1991). In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought. New York: Oxford University Press. Degler provides an excellent survey of the nature-nurture debate in the human sciences in the twentieth-century United States, focusing especially on the role of Darwinism in this debate. He is sympathetic to the rise of sociobiology.

Hawkins, Mike. (1997). Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. This is the best single volume on social Darwinism available. Hawkins provides in-depth analysis of key social Darwinist thinkers in various countries.

Hecht, Jennifer Michael. (2000). "Vacher De Lapouge and the Rise of Nazi Science." Journal of the History of Ideas 61 (2000): 285–304.

Hofstadter, Richard. (1955). Social Darwinism in American Thought, revised edition. Boston: Beacon Press. This is the pioneering work that introduced the term social Darwinism into historical discourse. While providing excellent explanations and examples of social Darwinism, he wrongly equated it with conservative political thought.

Jones, Greta. (1980). Social Darwinism and English Thought: The Interaction between Biological and Social Theory. Sussex, UK: Harvester. Jones shows the prominence (and variety) of social Darwinist thought in Britain during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Weikart, Richard. (2004). From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. This work shows the impact of Darwinism on ethical and moral thought in Germany during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It explores eugenics, euthanasia, racism, militarism, and the impact of Darwinism on Hitler's thought.

Wilson, Edward O. (1975). Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. This is the classic work by a Harvard biologist that brought sociobiology into prominence in the late twentieth century.

Weindling, Paul. (1989). Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. A long chapter on social Darwinism in Germany shows the predominance of political liberalism in social Darwinist discourse. Much of the rest of the book examines eugenics.

Young, Robert. (1985). "Darwinism Is Social." In The Darwinian Heritage, ed. David Kohn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Young cogently explains how social thought impacted Darwin and influenced the formulation and expression of his theory.