Introduction

The Darwinian worldview was critical, not only in influencing the development of Nazism and communism, but also in the rise of the ruthless capitalists that flourished in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Morris and Morris, 1996). A key aspect of this brand of capitalism was its extreme individualism which indicated that other persons count for little, and that it is both natural and proper to exploit "weaker" companies. The socalled robber barons often concluded that their behavior was justified by natural law and was the inevitable outcome of history (Josephson, 1934). Many were raised as Christians, but rejected their Christianity or modified it to include their socialist/Darwinian ideas. Gertrude Himmelfarb noted that Darwinism may have been accepted in England in part because it justified the greed of certain people.

Rachels noted that "the survival of the fittest" theory in biology was quickly interpreted by capitalists as "an ethical precept that sanctioned cutthroat economic competition" (1990, p. 63, see also Hs, 1986, p. 10). Julian Huxley and H. B. D. Kittlewell even concluded that social Darwinism "led to the glorification of free enterprise, laissez-faire economics and war, to an unscientific eugenics and racism, and eventually to Hitler and Nazi ideology" (in Huxley and Kittlewell, 1965, p. 81).

Darwinism helped to justify not only the ruthless exploits of the communists, but also the ruthless practices of capitalist monopolists such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Kenneth Hs (1986, p. 534) noted:

Like Stalin, Marx, Lenin, and Hitler, Carnegie also once accepted Christianity, but abandoned it for Darwinism and became a close friend of the famous social Darwinist, Herbert Spencer. Carnegie stated in his autobiography that when he and several of his friends came to doubt the teachings of Christianity,

Carnegie's conclusions were best summarized when he said:

John D. Rockefeller reportedly once said that the "growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest . . . the working out of a law of nature . . ." (Ghent, 1902, p. 29). The Rockefellers, while maintaining a Christian front, fully embraced evolution and dismissed the Bible's early books as mythology (Taylor, 1991, p. 386). When a philanthropist pledged ,000 to help found a university named after William Jennings Bryan, John D. Rockefeller Jr. retaliated the very same day with a ,000,000 donation to the openly anticreationist University of Chicago Divinity School (Larson, 1997, p. 183). Morris and Morris noted that the philosophy expressed by Rockefeller also was embraced not only by railroad magnate James Hill, but probably most other capitalists of his day (1996, p. 87). Morris and Morris have suggested that many modern evolutionists:

Morris and Morris also noted that both the left wing MarxistLeninism and the right wing ruthless capitalists were anticreationists and "even when they fight with each other, they remain united in opposition to creationism . . ." (p. 82). Many capitalists did not discard their Christianity, but instead tried to blend it with Darwinism. The result was a compromise somewhat like theistic evolution. Although most American businessmen were probably not consciously social Darwinists,

Several studies have documented the important contribution of Darwin to laissezfaire capitalism: An analysis of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission (1902-1903) hearings found:

Rosenthal (1997) showed that, historically, biogenetic doctrines had the effect of promoting an attitude of acceptance of the problems of racism, sexism, war, and capitalism. The field of biogenetics has offered no new scientific evidence that human social behavior has a biogenetic basis, or that business/social competition, male dominance, aggression, territoriality, xenophobia, and even patriotism, warfare, and genocide are genetically based human universals. Yet biogenetic doctrines have occupied a prominent place throughout most of American sociological history. Rosenthal noted that Cooley, Sorokin, Sumner, Ross, and even Park adhered to biological racist doctrines that in the past have signaled and encouraged reactionary social policy.

The Darwinian concept, applied to business, still is very much with us today. Robert Blake and his coauthors in their 1996 book, Corporate Darwinism, attempted to apply modern Darwinism to business. They concluded that business evolves in very predictable ways, specifically in defined stages very much like the stages of human evolution. This "business evolution" is natural; business in keeping with Darwinian principles either swallows the competition, or finds that it will be swallowed by that competition.

Darwin's ideas played a critically important role in the development and growth, not only of Nazism and communism, but also of the ruthless form of capitalism as best illustrated by the robber barons. While it is difficult to conclude confidently that ruthless capitalism would not have blossomed as it did if Darwin had not developed his evolution theory, it is clear that if Carnegie, Rockefeller, and others had continued to embrace the unadulterated JudeoChristian worldview of their youth and had not become Darwinists, capitalism would not have become as ruthless as it did in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Morris and Morris (p. 84) have suggested that other motivations (including greed, ambition, even a type of a missionary zeal) stimulated the fierce, unprincipled robber baron business practices long before Darwin. Darwinism, however, gave capitalism an apparent scientific rationale that allowed it to be taken to the extremes that were so evident in the early parts of last century.

Blake, Robert, Warren Avis and Jane Mouton. 1966. Corporate Darwinism. Houston, TX: Gulf Pub. Carnegie, Andrew. 1920. Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, ed. John C. Van Dyke. 1986; reprint, Boston: Northeastern University Press. Doukas, Dimitra. 1997. "Corporate Capitalism on Trial: The Hearings of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, 1902-1903." Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 3(3):367-398. Ghent, William. 1902. Our Benevolent Feudalism. New York: Macmillan. Himmelfarb, Gertrude. 1962. Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. New York: W.W. Norton. Hs, Kenneth. June 1986. "Darwin's Three Mistakes," Geology, (vol. 14), p. 532-534. Hs, Kenneth. 1986. The Great Dying: Cosmic Catastrophe, Dinosaurs and the Theory of Evolution. NY: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. Huxley, Julian and H.B.D. Kittlewell. 1965. Charles Darwin and His World. New York: Viking Press. Josephson, Matthew. 1934. The Robber Barons. New York: Harcourt and Brace. Larson, Edward J. 1997. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. New York: Basic Books. Morris, Henry and John D. Morris. 1996. The Modern Creation Trilogy. vol. 3. Society and Creation. Green Forrest, AR: Master Books. Oldroyd, D.R. 1980. Darwinian Impacts. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Rachels, James. 1990. Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism. New York: Oxford University Press. Rosenthal, Steven J. 1977. Sociobiology: New Synthesis or Old Ideology? American Sociological Association. Taylor, Ian T. 1991. In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order. Minneapolis: TFE Publishing.

* Jerry Bergman, Ph.D., is on the Biology faculty at Northwest State College in Ohio.

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Darwin's Influence on Ruthless Laissez Faire Capitalism