Page 73 - The Social Weapon: Darwinism

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harmony of the new science [Social Darwinism] with the outlook
of a business civilization. 32

One reason why some capitalists adopted Social
Darwinism was that it absolved the wealthy from any responsi-
bility for the poor. In societies that preserve moral values, the
rich are expected to show an interest in helping the poor and
needy, and Social Darwinism attempted to eliminate that virtue.
In The Golden Door: The United States from 1876 to 1918, science
writer Isaac Asimov comments on this ruthless aspect of Social
Darwinism:
Spencer coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” and in 1884 ar-
gued, for instance, that people who were unemployable or bur-
dens on society should be allowed to die rather than be made
objects of help and charity. To do this, apparently, would weed
out unfit individuals and strengthen the race. It was a horrible
philosophy that could be used to justify the worst impulses of
human beings. 33
Just as those who implemented savage capitalism supported

Darwinism, so Darwinists supported them. For example, William
Graham Sumner claimed that millionaires were “the fittest indi-
viduals in society,” then made illogical deductions that they
therefore deserved special privileges and were “naturally se-
34
lected in the crucible of competition.” In an article about Social
Darwinism in The Humanist periodical, professor of philosophy
Stephen Asma describes Spencer's support for capitalists:
Spencer coined the phrase survival of the fittest, and Darwin
adopted the parlance in later editions of his Origin of Species. ...
According to Spencer and his American disciples—business en-
trepreneurs like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie—so-
cial hierarchy reflects the unwavering, universal laws of nature.
Nature unfolds in such a way that the strong survive and the
weak perish. Thus, the economic and social structures that sur-

Harun Yahya - Adnan Oktar