For all the talk about getting rid of evolution in schools, I've always found it interesting that conservatives are fond of "Social Darwinism". The founder of this concept was a British philosopher named Herbert Spencer. The phrase "Survival of the Fittest", normally associated with biological evolution, was actually coined by Spencer in 1852, seven years before Darwin's "Origin of Species". Spencer was so intrigued by Darwin's work that he expanded his writings into a comprehensive economic theory. This economic theory should sound very familiar:
- "Society advances where its fittest members are allowed to assert their fitness with the least hindrance".
- On the other hand, the unfit should not be prevented from dying out.
- So, what kind of civilization is "fit?" His, of course. England and other "advanced" nations.
- Government has but two purposes - to defend the nation against foreign invasion, and to protect people and their property from criminals.
- Government should not help the poor. That only encourages laziness and vice.
- Public education is a bad idea, too, since it forces people to pay for others' education.
- All public regulation, including health laws, sanitation laws, housing laws, etc., interferes with the right of property owners, and therefore should be eliminated.
- Most taxation is merely confiscation of wealth, and therefore inhibits the natural evolution of society.
- Spencer's a 100% free trader, of course. If we remove all regulation, monopolies won't happen because of natual competition, and if companies did terrible things (like, say, sell meat infected with e. coli or mad cow disease), nobody would buy their products again, so they'd go out of business.
- Labor laws both infringe upon employers' rights and on the rights of the individual worker to negotiate individually with the employer.
My source for all this is the Consitutional Rights Foundation,
http://www.crf-usa.org/bria/bria19_2b.htm.
Spencer's ideas were adopted by two different groups, or maybe they weren't so different after all: the businessmen and politicians who created the "Gilded Age" of the robber barons, and supremacist groups in Europe and the U.S.
Bruce Springsteen has said that "Nobody wins unless everybody wins." That's the basis of liberal economic theory, isn't it? Cooperation is actually a good thing, and all are enhanced by it. It's immoral to let people starve or go without life-saving medication. It's immoral to allow companies to poison our air and water. It's immoral to discriminate in housing, employment, etc, or anything else.
Conservative economic theory sneers at this. It's all laissez-faire, survival of the fittest, buisness knows best stuff. When conservatives use the term "Free enterprise", and they do a lot, this is what they're talking about. Don't expect them to win a few battles and rest on their laurels - they want the whole program. Never forget that.
