This study will discuss how Darwin's theory of natural selection was construed as a justification for questionable business practices and how it impacted American political philosophy during the latter 19th century.
The impact of Darwin's evolutionary theories can hardly be overestimated with respect to the scientific community and society in general. As Hudson writes, "Within a decade after the Civil War practically every important American scientist had been converted to Darwin's theory of biological evolution, and Herbert Spencer's "social Darwinism" was equally influential. Indeed, as early as 1872, the Atlantic Monthly was able to report that within the scientific community 'natural selection, had quite won the day in Germany and England, and very nearly won it in America'" (Hudson, 1973, p. 263).
Darwin had posited in his evolutionary theorizing that the animal kingdom was guided and shaped by the force for survival, and that this force could be fairly described by the term "survival of the fittest." The theory of natural selection argued that there was a drive in animals which led the strongest to mate with the strongest. Nature served the survival of a species by guiding the strongest of that species to mate and issue offspring which would be stronger than the offspring of others of that species.
Nelson et al. write that, in Darwin's theory, "Of the offspring, those individuals that are best fitted to compete will survive. Because the selection of the individuals that are to survive is made by the environment, Darwin called this natural selection" (Nelson et al., 1974, p. 320).
It is simplistic to argue that capitalists used the natural selection or "survival of the fittest" theory of Darwin to excuse anything they did in the pursuit of wealth and power. To the contrary, they argued that their pursuit of wealth and power was good not only for themselves but for all society. As we read in Smith, "Simply st...