The Rebirth of Social Darwinism

Robert Reich argues that GOP politicians who claim to be conservatives, are not conservative at all. They want to return America to a past that it had rejected. It is a past in which civilization was rejected in favor of the law of the jungle. In the jungle only the strong survive and the weak perish. Natural selections is at work and those that are most fit rise to the top. Government intervention in the market prevents natural selection from taking place. It is best to let nature work as God intended.

There is much in what we hear from the GOP that fits Reich's characterization of their philosophy. They reject civilization in favor of the jungle. The obvious advantage of their philosophy is that oligarchy is justified as natural selection. Perhaps that explains why the CEO of Goldman Sachs claimed that he does God's work. Financiers have risen to the top of the social and economic hierarchy by natural selection and they should be compensated accordingly. It is not surprising that the case for Social Darwinism was made by a professor at one of our elite university's and widely acclaimed as gospel during the "Gilded Age" that preceded the "Great Depression". It should not surprise us that the revival of Social Darwinism is part of the effort to justify and restore the "Gilded Age". We have to decide whether the jungle is God's work or whether civilization is an improvement over the jungle.