Thursday, May 22, 2008

An Explanation

Not many people agreed with me in one of my earlier post. I guess I was not able to make the exact point and the violence part of it got focused too much. Pardon this newbie writer.

However, having studied evolution and economics a bit more, I think I can put my thoughts bit more precisely. I was trying to critique the Social Darwinistic rationalization of Laissez-Faire economic policies. I feel like a philosopher already :P .

Social Darwinism is a theory that suggests that since evolution is essentially "survival of the fittest", cut-throat capitalism is the a naturally right economic policy.

A second way pseudo-evolutionary concepts were applied to human interaction was in the development of cut-throat capitalism in the United States. Here the ideology was that the cream naturally rose to the top; the successful made a lot of money simply because they were superior to the unsuccessful. Those who found themselves in poverty were poor because they were intrinsically inferior. This political philosophy resisted suggestions like universal education, welfare, minimum wage — in short, anything which interfered with the business of the "superior" ascending to the top of the heap and squashing the unfit beneath their expensive shoes.
(Source)

I was trying to see if this theory could be falsified without getting into the question of ethics. I realize that what I had criticized was only a small part of the theory. The theory goes on to rationalize war, racism, eugenics on the basis of "survival of the fittest" doctrine. Evolution has been criticized for the lack of morality in this theory. I am looking for a good critique of the theory that does not deal with ethics. There are some critiques of the theory available online, however, I haven't studied them in detail. Will write more once I read them.

1 comment:

crazed_mellow said...

This is a question that i sadly struggle with myself. The mob in general has always been wild and given to emotional control rather than rational analysis.
they have followed hitler, religion, mussolini, pol pot, stalin, modi, and togadia.

But then they also followed Gandhi and Nehru with similar fervour.

So why should we??