Conservatism Supports Social Darwinism

470 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Urban vs rural lifestyles

Social Darwinism is the belief that the individual is more powerful than society. It encourages a ruthless system of self-interest and intolerant treatment of others. Those who believe in Social Darwinism believe that the society is inferior to the needs of the individual. Often those who believe in Social Darwinism are racist and believe that the white origin is the superior race of society. Social Darwinism is the opposite of socialism. Socialists believe that society comes before the individual while those who follow Social Darwinism believe the individual comes before society. However, Social Darwinism has been incorporated into the belief of socialism mainly with the fact that people believe that they can rise about the “natural law” and through planning they can create the perfect society. They believe that they can live their lives in a utopian society. Socialism believes in government intervention to control the means of production. Therefore, the state controls the production within the country and control the direction, which the country goes.

Liberalism took the aspect of survival of the fittest into its beliefs. In a liberal economy, the individuals control the means of production so that there is a choice in what to purchase. Liberalists believe that the marketplace follows a natural cycle of supply and demand and therefore the government should not interfere. This With this system, products that do not sell are dropped in favor of more useful goods. Consumer sovereignty is the key factor in this society. This same approach was taken towards the poor. Liberals believed that others should not be able to leech off those who worked hard and contributed to society. The church and other volunteer organizations should have provide help. A liberal society thinks that those who work hard and are motivated should be rewarded while those who are lazy should be punished. The beliefs of liberalism tie into those of Social Darwinism because once again the needs of the individual are more important than those of society.

The aspect that relates to conservatism to Social Darwinism is the aspect of a certain class or group of people to be superior to any other group which is considered to be inferior. Conservatists believed that only the upper class and the church should provide leadership.

Show More
Related

  • Liberal's Opinion on American Government

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    The typical conservative tends to focus his philosophical Ideals on the self reliance and free market. They don't see the need for big spending politicians and big government programs. They would prefer to see the money stay in the private sector. They also believe that business people tend to be better at economic decisions than politicians. They believe that the government has it's place, but many times oversteps it's authority for political reasons. Big business and corporations are not evil in their world, in fact most conservatives will tell you that big business and corporate success is the only thing that will make the economy go.

    Read More

  • Response Of Socialism To Classical Liberalism

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    Classical liberalism is an ideology that embraces the principles of individualism such as rule of law, individual rights and freedoms, private property, economic freedom, self-interest, competition. Classical liberalism stresses the importance of human rationality. Just as it values political freedom, classical liberalism also holds freedom to be the basic standard in economics, and believes the most beneficial economic system to be the free market. Whereas, the term socialism, when generally used refers to any ideology that believes that resources should be controlled by the public for the benefit of everyone in society and not by private interests for the benefit of private owners and investors. From the description of both classical liberalism and socialism provided above it is clear that the two are conflicting ideologies where one supports individualism the other supports collectivism that believes in the wellbeing of all citizens in a community.

    Read More

  • Social Darwinism Vs Social Gospel

    262 Words  | 1 Pages

    Both social darwinism and social gospel are ideologies surrounding the economics of urban and industrialization of the 19th century. Both of these were processes on the wealthy, and exactly how they would deal with poor and working class individuals. However, the specific execution on how these were done, as well as the goal were vastly different. Social Darwinism, just like Evolutionary Darwinism, really means survival of the fittest. The strongest survive and the weakest stay weak and eventually die. Relating this theory to economics; Social Darwinism is when a wealthy person keeps his money for him and his kin. Said person usually holds an attitude of, “the rich should get richer and the poor should stay poor.” On the other side of the economic

    Read More

  • Inequality In The Communist Manifesto By Karl Marx

    430 Words  | 1 Pages

    The fundamental contradiction of liberalism is that it produces inequality. In order to guarantee individual rights, in fact, a liberal government cannot force its citizens to promote equality. Furthermore, in a capitalist economy there is an incentive to produce on a mass scale, and the best way to increase productivity is to reduce the cost of labor; by reducing the cost of labor, the owners of the factories become richer, while the actual workers earn less money than they ought to. According to Karl Marx, this is the main problem of Liberalism: it somehow legalized inequality among people. So, in The Communist Manifesto, Marx explains why a total revolution of the society is inevitably going to happen.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Social Darwinism And The Gospel Of Wealth

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    Social Darwinism and The Gospel of Wealth explain these thoughts. There are some similarities, but many more differences between the two theories. Herbert Spencer and William Sumner were the two that created Social Darwinism. He started with nothing and was able to be very successful.

    Read More

  • Social Darwinism, the Gospel of Wealth, and the Gilded Age

    649 Words  | 2 Pages

    Social Darwinism is a late 19th century term used to describe the application of British naturalist Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection to social and political conditions. Late 19th century sociologist Herbert Spencer tried to capture the essence of social Darwinism with his phrase “survival of the fittest”. This essentially meant that the strong would rise to the top while the weak simply died out. Social Darwinists eschew social responsibility and compassion, instead believing that some people are more fit to survive than others. Many social Darwinists advocated that the government should maintain a laissez-faire, or hands off, approach when it came to regulating economic competition and alleviating social inequalities. Social Darwinism was used to justify the consolidation of the majority of wealth by a minority of Americans. The term allowed people to rationalize capitalism, imperialism, racism, and even eugenics. The wealthy believed in social Darwinism because it allowed them to justify their oppressive business tactics and low wages for their labor force. Politicians believed in it because it allowed them to justify imperialism, or expansion of the nation. Affluent Anglo-Saxons believed in social Darwinism, believing themselves to be the superior race, and used it to justify ...

    Read More

  • Thre Views of Social Darwinism

    1702 Words  | 4 Pages

    The concept of Social Darwinism was a widely accepted theory in the nineteenth-century. Various intellectual, and political figures from each side of the political spectrum grasped the theory and interpreted it in various ways. In this paper, we will discuss three different nineteenth-century thinkers and their conception of Social Darwinism. The conservative, Heinrich von Treitschke, and liberal Herbert Spencer both gave arguments on the usefulness of competition between people on a global scale. The anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, refuted the belief of constant competition among members of the same species and emphasized mutual aid.

    Read More

  • Politics and Poverty

    1251 Words  | 3 Pages

    Conservatives generally go with the perspective that less is more. Most would side with the argument that less government action is a better approach for society as a whole. Rather than promoting the idea of social equality, like the Liberal perspective, they promote social inequality. Most would like little government regulation and intervention of economy. Conservatives have the "big business" and "trickle down" theory, that even though the rich stay rich, their wealth will eventually reach the poor and poverty-stricken.

    Read More

  • The Political Spectrum

    995 Words  | 2 Pages

    - Conservatism is essentially the defense of economic individualism against the growth of a welfare state.

    Read More

  • Social Darwinism and Race Superiority In The West

    2028 Words  | 5 Pages

    Social Darwinism was a set of theories developed by various people during the 19th century. It was the adaptation of Darwin theory of evolution applied to human social behavior and ability to survive compared to other human beings. It can now easily be seen that these theories could be used to justify racial discrimination and they have been used in this way throughout history. This misconception of Darwin’s theories popularized by various academics in the west gave western nations to treat other nations badly. People like French man Joseph Gobineau had already come up with race supremacy ideas before Darwin’s theories of evolution had started to become a popular idea. He took his ideas from what he was seeing around him at the time not looking at other factors as to why people from these other races had not succeeded in the same way his own race had. Similar ideas again were backed up in the French translation of Darwin’s The Origin of Species as an introduction added by the translator Clemence Royer applied some of Darwin’s ideas to the different human races. Herbert Spencer probably the most popular Social Darwinists believed that the fight between races was inevitable and time would tell who came out on top. These race supremacy ideas were put into use by colonial Britain which showed that many ‘well educated’ and like wise people in the west believed that social evolution had made them a more advanced race.

    Read More

  • Modern Liberalism And Modern Conservatism

    2261 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...ould harm it, while conservatives tend to oppose things such as the Clean Air Act for monetary reasons. Conservatives tend to support smaller government while liberals tend to want a larger government. Even though there are many differences between the two ideologies they both derived from classical liberalism. Some individuals refer to classical liberalism as the “best of both worlds” ideology. Both ideologies believe in hierarchies as an organization principle of society and both believe in the “middle class.” They both believe in the constitution and share many moral values. The two ideologies are very different, yet they are not complete opposites in every situation or argument. Many individuals have a hard time labeling themselves a ‘liberal’ or a ‘conservative’ because they may have liberal beliefs in one-area of politics and conservative beliefs in another.

    Read More

  • Socialism Argumentative Essay

    751 Words  | 2 Pages

    Socialism is a social and economic system where the means of productions are shared indivisibly throughout the community or enterprise rather than in the names of a few individuals. Or more simply put Socialists believe that the Chief Executives of a corporation are not the ones who deserve the big pay check. They believe that the working men and women deserve more money because they are they ones out in the field doing the work. The main goal of socialism is to more evenly distribute the wealth. They care more about having more people living comfortably than just a few individuals getting wealthy. Socialist ideas in todays politics are what they believe will make it easier for Americans to live in America.

    Read More

  • Marxist Criticism Of Marxism

    1452 Words  | 3 Pages

    Liberalism, although having had its roots in late 18th century and having remained relevant through the last more than 2 centuries, has evolved and morphed over this period. The liberalism we see now, pervasive across the globe, has given rise to a free market economic system. While this free “marketism” is inherently open to exploitation and inequality, it is a system that undeniably creates opportunity. Modern day philosophers like Thomas Piketty and other have placed the liberal and Marxist debates back onto the agenda and placed them

    Read More

  • Social Darwinism Research Paper

    697 Words  | 2 Pages

    When exploring Darwin’s theory of human evolution and natural selection there are many ambiguities that cannot be overlooked. When it comes to moral and social connotations of his revolutionary scientific findings, Darwin left many question unanswered. Interpreters and political leaders found in the ambiguities of Darwin’s theory legitimation for the social ideologies they stood for. Generally social Darwinism is described as the process in which the Darwinian theory of biological evolution is applied to societal philosophies and ideologies. Darwin influenced many movements around the world, especially in the European region, but it was most often associated with the German history of eugenics and racial extermination. In the nineteenth and

    Read More

  • What's Social Darwinism?

    305 Words  | 1 Pages

    Social darwinism is about how one guy came up with the theory how all humans are the same as plants and animals it’s just that we are more advanced and educated in our lives than plants and animals. Although people as a society have these different images of people that are either black or white and that’s not right. People that are black have had to suffer an extrem amount poverty for example some blacks had to drink out of seperate water fountains which probably contained unhealthy elements also the blacks had to go to different areas if they were black or asian or europeon which were lower in quality as if it was a movie or a game or even a resturante. As for Social Darwinsm it is mainly about for the survival of the fittest so if a father

    Read More

More about Conservatism Supports Social Darwinism

Open Document