Social Darwinism: From Spencer To Rand To Ryan
Posted on Mon Apr 09, 2012 at 11:21:12 AM EST
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President Obama's evocation of Social Darwinism in describing the Paul Ryan budget proposal has led to some analysis of whether the use was apt. Paul Krugman's cleverly titled post Origins of Speciousness describes the polemica:
I was unhappy with President Obama’s decision to call Republicans “social Darwinists” — not because I thought it was wrong, but because I wondered how many voters would get his point. How many people know who Herbert Spencer was? It turns out, however, that right-wing intellectuals are furious, because … well, it’s a bit puzzling. One complaint is that some 19th-century social Darwinists were racists; well, lots of 19th-century people in general were racists, and racism is not the core of the doctrine. The other is that modern conservatives don’t literally want to see poor people die; so?
[T]he real defining characteristic of social Darwinism is the notion that harsh inequality is both necessary and right. And that’s absolutely what today’s right believes — which is the point all the faux outrage about the Darwinist label is meant to obscure.
From the legal perspective, I think Herbert Spencer's identification with the concept was most famously raised by Justice Holmes' dissent in Lochner v. New York:
The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well known writers, is interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought desirable, whether he likes it or not. The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics. [...] I think that the word liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our law. It does not need research to show that no such sweeping condemnation can be passed upon the statute before us. A reasonable man might think it a proper measure on the score of health. [Emphasis supplied.]
Yes, that excerpt would fairly apply to the Affordable Care Act, including the individual mandate. But objections to the mandate are not Social Darwinism. However, objections to its constitutionality are very much based on a notion of economic liberty that underpins Social Darwinism. As Justice Holmes stated, the notion of liberty encompassed in the Constitution does not include Herbert Spencer's Social Statics. And as such, the constitutionality of legislation should not be not judged on agreement or disagreement with the legislation:
If it were a question whether I agreed with that theory, I should desire to study it further and long before making up my mind. But I do not conceive that to be my duty, because I strongly believe that my agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with the right of a majority to embody their opinions in law.
However, there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the enactment of legislation that embodies Social Darwinism. And it is undeniable that the Republican conservative philosophy was and remains steeped in its precepts. Philip Kitcher explains:
The heart of social Darwinism is a pair of theses: first, people have intrinsic abilities and talents (and, correspondingly, intrinsic weaknesses), which will be expressed in their actions and achievements, independently of the social, economic and cultural environments in which they develop; second, intensifying competition enables the most talented to develop their potential to the full, and thereby to provide resources for a society that make life better for all. It is not entirely implausible to think that doctrines like these stand behind a vast swath of Republican proposals, including the recent budget, with its emphasis on providing greater economic benefits to the rich, transferring the burden to the middle-classes and poor, and especially in its proposals for reducing public services. Fuzzier versions of the theses have pervaded Republican rhetoric for the past decade (and even longer).
It's not that Republicans dislike the theories of Social Darwinism, it is that they dislike the label, which has historically negative connotations. But what was Ayn Rand but a Social Darwinist? What exactly would you compare Objectivism to? Now what of Paul Ryan? Here is what Ryan thinks about Ayn Rand:
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." ...
At the Rand celebration he spoke at in 2005, Ryan invoked the central theme of Rand's writings when he told his audience that, "Almost every fight we are involved in here on Capitol Hill ... is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict--individualism versus collectivism."
The core of the Randian worldview, as absorbed by the modern GOP, is a belief that the natural market distribution of income is inherently moral, and the central struggle of politics is to free the successful from having the fruits of their superiority redistributed by looters and moochers.
This sounds like Social Darwinism to me. Of course the Randian/Social Darwinists wish to escape these labels and who can blame them? But it is what it is.
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