My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
President Obama’s recent speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors signaled the opening of a political gambit in the upcoming presidential election. In dealing with the proposed budget of Representative Paul Ryan, the president sought to discredit nineteenth-century laissez-faire economics by linking that movement to Social Darwinism: Ryan’s plan, the president said, “is thinly veiled Social Darwinism. It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who is willing to work for it.”
The president’s well-crafted reference to the term ushered in a fierce political dispute between his supporters and detractors. In the midst of the din, no one has undertaken the essential task of sorting out the theoretical differences and similarities between Social Darwinism and laissez-faire, which I do in my column this week for Hoover's Defining Ideas.
Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species was published in 1859. Darwin’s tome offered the first complete view of evolution, which in two words boils down to “natural selection.” Random variation is found in all attributes of any large population of species. Those members that have variations that prove successful win out over their less successful rivals. In nature, this process takes place by a bloody process of competition for scarce resources. Individual organisms stop at nothing in order to satisfy nature’s imperative of self-preservation. The familiar expression “nature red in tooth and claw” spelled death for the losers in the Darwinian race for survival.
The social contract theory that projects the same grim fate for human beings is found in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, which envisions life in the state of nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Only state power could supply the needed antidote. The critical question became, what kind of state? The standard laissez-faire answer has always been a state that is strong enough to prevent aggression and fraud. . . continue reading at Defining Ideas.
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Sep '10
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
Isn't this social Darwinism? It's the YouTube video list from East Cleveland, a city with one of the highest rates of single parent households in the nation. It is the ultimate harvest of the sexual revolution. It's a place where the strong dominate the weak through violence and intimidation. That sounds classically Darwinian to me.
If the racial aspect bothers you, comfort yourself with the fact that in Britain, the races are reversed and it's the whites who are Darwinian.
Oct '10
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
Wonderful article. I need to fully digest these points to counter the deluge of misinformation coming with election sound-bites.
From the third to last paragraph: "Right now, the top one percent that garners roughly 20 percent of the income pays about 40 percent of the taxes." This is often countered by the point that it refers to income tax and that when sales, property, and other taxes are factored in, the middle class and even the poor still bear an undue burden. Does anyone know if this is true?
Dec '10
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
Ironically, those claiming to be burdened the most by government are a bigger burden on the rest of us [pdf] through government.
Sep '10
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
Income and wealth are markers of behavior. If they weren't, then Barack and Michelle would never have bothered to study. Instead of looking at the wealth gap, look at the behaviors common to each side of the wealth gap.
Look at East Cleveland.
Apr '11
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
The idea that less adapted or fit species die is a misleading interpretation of natural selection. What is being selected for is not ability to survive, but rather ability to procreate. Survival of individuals does not require procreation, while on the other hand procreation does require some degree of survival (at least up until the organism can procreate). So for instance mutations that may make a creature better able to utilize environmental resources and deal with predators and disease, but leave it sterile are selected against.
From an evolutionary point the creatures able to produce more children are the most fit, and will contribute the most to the future development of the species. Thus the welfare recipient with 10 illegitimate children is doing just fine from an evolutionary perspective.
This is what makes Social Darwinism none sense. The quality of the lives of people seems to have little impact on their ability to produce children that then also reach maturity and make more children. In fact it seems the more resources one has the less inclined we are to produce children. Thus natural selection should disfavor urban elites more, because of their disinterest in procreation.
Jul '10
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
I'd love to get Jonah Goldberg's take on this issue. In Liberal Fascism, he made a stirring defense of Herbert Spencer, who if I'm not mistaken, coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" and "social Darwinism." But Spencer interpreted Evolution differently than others. He applied evolutionary principles to economics, believing that society was best left alone by government and not to be interfered with. Classically understood, Social Darwinism did NOT mean that the government would select which businesses or groups were favored.
So in a sense, Obama is correct in calling the free market a kind of Social Darwinism, but flatly wrong in describing it as squelching opportunity for those who work at it.
Dec '10
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
Richard,
This is the biggest joke of them all. America is one of the most highly regulated societies on earth. We massively subsidize the lower economic class through tax policy, education policy, and the miriad of social welfare programs.
Obama's reference to the late 19th century concept of Social Darwinism is so completely out of touch with the reality of the USA in 2012 it can mean only one thing.
Barach Obama is, was, and will continue to be influenced by pure Marxist Ideology. Only a pure Marxist Ideologue could seriously use Social Darwinism to describe Paul Ryan's fantastically generous federal budget. The main difference between the Obama's budget and Ryan's is one of rationality. Ryan makes an attempt at a rational budget that would at least not continue do massive harm to the US economy. Obama's budget would accelerate the disaster.
We just can't seem to grasp how bad the creature in the White House is.
Regards,
Jim
Edited on April 10, 2012 at 5:09pmAug '10
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
Maybe I missed a brilliant speech somewhere, but how exactly does taxing the rich to dump more money into entitlements create opportunity and upward mobility? Even before we get into questions of economics and incentives, what is the exact mechanism that solves the equation:
Higher taxes + more government health insurance + X = increased upward mobility
The best theory I can come up with is that allowing workers to assume free and infinite health care stops them from getting bogged down by accidents that harm their health. But, even assuming we magically provided entitlements without cost to the larger economy, that certainly doesn't create more opportunities for anyone. Except for bureaucrats, I suppose.
Re: My Primer for Obama: Social Darwinism vs. Laissez-Faire
Nietzsche was the first to accuse Darwin of simply importing British morals into biology (adapt to survive, become more like the herd). Whether or not Nietzsche had middle-class notions of childbearing in mind, the 'Social Darwinism' slur pretends that the relationship between political and biological views is far more settled than it is. I find Obama's assault on Ryan to ring especially false given Ryan's own repeated emphasis on what he's gone so far (too far?) as to call 'the right to rise'.