Survival of the Fittest

Survival of the Fittest

1985 4 April 3-4 Survival of the Fittest (537) Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and W.G. Sumner (1840-1910) both were prolific publicists of social Darwinism. They applied the principle of biological evolution to the social sphere. Biological evolution had occurred through the unregulated competition of individual organisms and species for the scarce necessities of life. Unfit individuals and unadaptable species died or became extinct, leading to vigorous species and the eventual emergence of man. In just such a manner, reasoned the English sociologist Herbert Spencer, who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest”, unregulated competition among men had led to social and economic progress and the rise of the most able to positions of power and eminence. For progress to continue, unregulated competition must continue. Those at the bottom of the social ladder were there because they were inferior or unfit to engage in social life. To aid them would retard their extinction, hence retard progress itself.

The doctrine of evolution was not an established doctrine from the academic point of view. In the 19th century, however, the exponents of this theory were accorded great popularity, especially in the U.S.A., as it justified the economic and cultural domination of western nations over their inferiors. Their claims of superiority were substantiated by the fact that, ostensibly, it was inherited by the law of nature. Nature itself had selected them to rule. That was a far cry from their deliberately exploiting others.

Philosophers like Herbert Spencer and W.G. Sumner exploited the situation. They provided the capitalists with the much needed support of philosophical arguments in their favour. Thus the concept of the survival of the fittest was extended to those who were at the helm of world affairs. They were nature’s elite. To quote a passage from his book, *The Study of Sociology:

*William Graham Sumner quoted in Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought 1860-1915, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press 1945, p. 44.

I am Simply carrying out the views of Mr. Darwin their applications to the human race ... all (members of the race) being subject to the increasing difficulty of getting a living ... there is an average advance under the pressure, since only those who do advance under it eventually survive, and ... these must be the select of their generation.

Here is a similar quotation from Sumner*:

The millionaires are a product of natural selection . . . It is because they are thus selected that wealth – both their own and that entrusted to them – aggregates under their hands . . . They may fairly be regarded as the naturally selected agents of society for certain works. They get high wages and live in luxury, but the bargain is a good one for society.

Many of the ideologies of modern times, like the theory of evolution owe their popularity less to their being truths than to the fact that they justify the desires of individuals, groups, countries and condone their pursuit on intellectual grounds.

All too often people accept or reject something not on the basis of truth or falsehood, but on the basis of what best serves their interests. With them it is expediency which counts, and not truth.

*Herbert Spencer, The Study of Sociology New York, D. Appleton & Co. 1891 p. 438