Sumner And Social Darwinism In America

Social Darwinism was founded by Spencer, an English sociologist in 1860's, and came into America soon. William Graham Sumner is one of American advocators of social Darwinism in that time. This thesis is mainly about Sumner's social Darwinism, which studies substance and source of his thought. The thesis has four parts:Part one, Social Darwinism, the Birth and its spreading in America. The theory of social Darwinism was founded by Herbert Spencer. Its basic theory includes: the social organism, social evolution and the law of equal freedom. The following factors made social Darwinism be very popular in America at the time of 19th century 60's to 90's. America had a strong tradition of individualism, which was suitable for spreading of social Darwinism. American monopoly capitalist class took great effort to advocate social Darwinism. Social Darwinism tried to cover up itself by using Darwin's theory.Part two, Social Darwinism thought of William Sumner. Sumner's social Darwinism think that the conflict between resource and population leads to "struggle for survive", and people are inequality in "struggle for survive". "Survival of the fittest" is the result of "struggle for survival" and the loser will be eliminated, which is law of social evolution. Human society evolutes from low-level to senior, in this process human intervention on social development will be useless. Combining with laissez-faire ideology and conservatism, Sumner's social Darwinism was against government's intervention on economic and social life.Part three, the source of Sumner's social Darwinism thought. The source of Sumner's social Darwinism is introduced in this part: the Protestant ethic, the Classical economics of Malthus and David Ricardo, and Darwinism.Part four, evaluation of Sumner's thought. There are serious shortcomings in social Darwinism, and this theory is out of tune with development of America. However, Sumner insisted on holding social Darwinism, which led to weakness of his thought. Sumner's social Darwinism deprived from Herbert Spencer, at the same time, there were differences between them. Sumner's social Darwinism wanted to serve the interests of the middle classis. However it had been exploited by the monopoly bourgeoisie.