Social Darwinism:

Laissez-Faire vs. Meliorism

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Raphael. The School of Athens (Plato and Aristotle). 2

• Social Darwinism in America was represented by two contending movements.

• One, so called "Conservative Darwinism," consisted of the followers of Herbert Spencer.

• Another, sometimes called "Reform Darwinism," was inspired by Thomas Huxley.

H. Spencer T. Huxley1820-1903 1825-1895

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Conservative Darwinism• Spencer coined the expression “survival of the fittest.”

• Conservative Darwinists believed that the law of natural selection was established by evolutionary science not only for biological processes but also for economics as a principle of laissez‑faire. 4

• For Conservative Darwinists, such as W. G. Sumner, biological evolution and social evolution were natural processes both regulated by natural selection.

• Any attempt to interfere with these natural laws, by instituting universal education or social support for less successful members of society, could only cause social regression.

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• Both Darwin and Spencer, as well as Sumner, were influenced by Thomas Malthus's theory of population.

• T. Malthus1766-1834

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• Malthus claimed that population always grows faster than food supply.

• He saw scarceness of resources as a fundamental principle of economics.

• The science of political economy determines how scarce resources should be distributed. 7

• According to Spencer, those who can produce more should get more.

• Society that protects people from hardships of nature interferes with progress.

• Evolution brings gradual improvement but any deliberate intellectual plan is a disturbance to the evolutional process.

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• Spencer was a supporter of classical liberalism, according to which the economic welfare is based on the relationships between land, labor, and capital regulated by free market.

•  Controlling production by the state means corruption.

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• State is a source of tyranny. • The growth of government and government’s intervention through social institutions should be constrained.

• The function of government is to prevent stealing, that is, to preserve the right of property.

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• Conservative Darwinists saw Reformers’ “sentimentalism” as harmful to society.

• People are successful because they are the fittest.

• If we help the unfit succeed they will take the place of those who are able to benefit society the most.

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Reform Darwinism• Reform Darwinism was inspired by Thomas H. Huxley. Huxley argues that there are two different components in the process of human evolution - the "cosmic evolution" and the "ethical evolution.”

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• Biological evolution in form of natural selection represents the "cosmic" process;

• Humankind is also included in ethical process that deviates from, and often works counter to, the "natural" course of evolution.

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• To the Reform Darwinists there was no controversy between the findings of the evolutionary theory and progressive efforts at transforming the world in the image of ethical ideals.

 

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• Reform Darwinists, such as L. F. Ward, claim that ethics shouldn’t take any lesson from biology.

• The nature of society is to be a massive intervention in natural processes.

• The power of our minds puts us outside natural selection.

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• William Graham Sumner and Lester Frank Ward represented two opposing camps of Social Darwinism.

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W. G. Sumner• Sumner expressed one of the central principles of his social philosophy in the sentence: "Society needs first of all to be free from meddlers--that is, to be let alone."

W. G. Sumner 1840-1910 17

• Thrift, hard work, prudence, and abstinence remained his central virtues and values.

• Sumner was not a dispassionate recorder and observer of the laws of evolution and competition.

• He was convinced that "socialism was profoundly immoral."

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• The history of humankind, Sumner taught, is a perpetual struggle between individuals, classes and groups.

• The law of the survival of the fittest was not made by man and cannot be revoked by man.

• This is the law of Nature

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• Sumner was impatient with the reformers who wished to correct the balance of natural forces.

• "They do not perceive that . . . 'the strong' and the 'weak' are terms which admit of no definition unless they are made equivalent to the industrious and the idle, the frugal and the extravagant…

• if we do not like the survival of the fittest, we have only one possible alternative, and that is the survival of the unfittest."

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• In his later work Folkways (1906) Sumner attempted to develop a comprehensive theory of human evolution together with the description of basic human traits.

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• Guided by instincts inherited from its animal ancestors, the human race had gradually, developed types of group conduct, habitual ways of doing things, adaptation to the environment and a successful struggle for existence.

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• These habitual ways fo living Sumner calls “folkways.”

• The folkways that are crucial for the welfare of the group became “mores”

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• "What they [mores] do is that they cover usage in dress, language, behavior, manners etc.”

• The mores dominate all members of a group. They are coercive and constraining, and their violation is punished by sharp negative sanctions.

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• Sumner's third key concept is "institutions."

• An institution consists of a concept (idea, doctrine, interest) and a structure.

• The structure furnishes instrumentalities for bringing a concept “into the world of fact.”

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• Most institutions of the past have been "crescive,” that is, they have slowly grown out of folkways and mores.

• "Enacted" institutions, in contrast, belong to the modern world as products of rational invention and intention.

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• Religion, property, and marriage are primarily crescive institutions, whereas modern banks and the electoral college are enacted institutions.

• But acts of legislation can succeed only to the extent that they have their roots in the mores.

• Stateways can never contradict folkways.

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• In Folkways Sumner still maintains his belief in laissez-faire.

• Any attempt to legislate against the mores, he argues, is bound to fail.

• The mores do change, but they change slowly, in tune with changing "life conditions,” as an adjustment of mankind to its environment, mainly through trial and error.

• Any attempt to influence the mores purposefully upsets the Nature.

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L. F. Ward• Ward shared with Sumner an admiration for Darwin and for evolutionary science, but he did not accept the biologistic analogies of Spencer and Sumner’s Conservative Darwinism.

L. F. Ward 1841-1913 29

• Ward belonged to the meliorist and reformist wing of Social Darwinism. He sought to refute Spencerian defense of laissez-faire economics.

• He wanted to show that the laws of natural evolution did not apply to human development.

• He emphasized that while natural evolution proceeded in a purposeless manner, human evolution was informed by purposeful action.

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• "Animal economics, the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, results from the multiplication of organisms beyond the means of survival.

• Nature produces organisms in superabundance and relies upon the wind, water, birds, and animals to sow her seed.

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• A rational being, on the other hand, prepares the ground, eliminates weeds, drills holes, and plants at proper intervals; this is the way of human economics.

• While environment transforms the animal, man transforms the environment”.

Outlines of Sociology (1898)32

• Because of this basic split between human and nonhuman processes, Ward argued, Malthus's theory of population, which influenced both Spencer's and Darwin's views, does not apply to the human race.

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• "The fact is that men and society are not, except in a very limited sense, under the influence of the great dynamic laws that control the rest of the animal world ....

• If we call biological processes natural, we must call social processes artificial.

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• The fundamental principle of biology is natural selection, that of sociology is artificial selection ....

• If nature progresses through the destruction of the weak, man progresses through the protection of the weak.”

“Mind as a Social Factor” 1883

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• Ward conceded to the Conservative Darwinists that in the past human history included the struggle between races and classes.

• In the future, however, the struggle will be eliminated through planned and purposeful action led by an enlightened government, a "sociocracy.”

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• Previous social achievements made possible for humanity to direct further evolution by rational effort.

• Education would be the primary mechanism of continuous human progress.

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