Reading time: ~3 min read
Although Malthus and Darwin's views lacked any scientific foundation, they received wide support. We need to seek the reason for this in the period in which they both lived, which was post-Industrial Revolution England. Following the Industrial Revolution, the British aristocracy feared it would surrender its status and power to the working class. On the other hand, they needed a larger, cheap work force. As a result of that dilemma, the ruling class in Britain drew the conclusion that the “lower class” had to be weakened, brought under control, oppressed, and put to work. In stating that food resources were insufficient in the face of a rapidly rising population, Malthus suggested that the solution lay in preventing the “lower orders” from multiplying, thus causing a number of measures to be taken against the poor. By applying Malthus's thesis to natural sciences and biology, Darwin provided the claim with a fictitious scientific guise.
In his book Social Darwinism in American Thought, Richard Hofstadter says this about Darwin's support for Malthus's thesis:
Malthusianism had become popular in England... it had also been used to relieve the rich of responsibility for the sufferings of the poor. Malthus had been proved wrong by the course of events; and just when his theory was dying out in political economy it received fresh support from Darwinian biology.15
In an article, researcher and author Ian Taylor has this to say about the degenerate ideas in Malthus's thesis:
The lesson in all this is that Darwin and others who reject both God and the promise of His providence and intervention have found in the Malthus principle a terrifying spectre of tragedy and despair that has driven them into unspeakable ethical and absurd scientific propositions. This in spite of the obvious weaknesses and deficiencies in Malthus argument.16
Although science refuted Malthus's “ruthless, despair-inducing, nonsensical” claim, it has still managed to remain influential up to the present day. Ian Taylor's book In the Minds of Men summarizes the chain of ruthlessness that began with Malthus and ended with Hitler:
The maxim on which Malthus based his thinking was what later became the “survival of the fittest” theme. The notion can be traced from Condorcet to Malthus, to Spencer, to Wallace, and to Darwin. It eventually mushroomed out to influence men such as Adolf Hitler, but we should be reminded that it all began in the tale of the goats and dogs.17
As we have seen, various administrators and leaders sought to use Malthus's opinions to mask their own interests. Various opinion formers with their own ideological concerns played an important role in those views receiving such wide acceptance. The disasters caused by the support given to this ruthless world view, were on a scale never been seen before. In the following pages, we shall examine how this merciless world view that began with Malthus gained strength under the name of Social Darwinism—and what it cost humanity.