Was Darwin or Spencer the father of laissez-faire social Darwinism?

Richard Weikart

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2009, vol. 71, issue 1, pages 20-28

Abstract: This article explores the way that Darwin and Spencer integrated laissez-faire ideas into their evolutionary biology, and how they then extrapolated from their evolutionary theories to social and economic thought. It argues that Darwin and Spencer developed laissez-faire social Darwinism independently, making both important progenitors of it.

Keywords: Darwin; Spencer; Social; Darwinism; Laissez-faire; Evolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V8F ... e3c709cb70f054221d46
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:71:y:2009:i:1:p:20-28

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is edited by J. B. Rosser

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Series data maintained by Heidi Boesdal ().