Social Darwinism

Full Description

The application of Charles Darwin’s biological concepts of natural selection and “survival of the fittest” to human society, typically to justify social inequality, racial hierarchy, and imperial conquest as natural outcomes of competition. Social Darwinism was never a unified theory but a loose collection of ideas used to provide scientific legitimacy for existing power structures. It influenced Nazi racial ideology, colonial “civilising mission” justifications, and laissez-faire economics. Darwin himself did not endorse its social applications.

Critical Perspective

Social Darwinism demonstrates how scientific vocabulary can be appropriated to legitimise political power. The concept mis-applied Darwinian theory (which operates over thousands of generations, not decades) and selected only the competitive aspects of evolution, ignoring co-operation. Its real function was ideological — to naturalise social hierarchies that were the product of history and power, making inequality appear to be the inevitable result of biological law rather than economic and political choices.