Darwin’s theories were extended by others beyond the realm in which he had worked. Social thinkers, who recklessly applied Darwin’s conclusions to the social order, produced theories that had dangerous consequences for society. Social Darwinsts―those who transferred Darwin’s scientific theories to social and economic issues―used the terms “struggles for existence” and “survival of the fittest” to buttress economic individualism and political conservatism. Successful businessmen, they said, had demonstrated their fitness to succeed in the competitive world of business. Their success accorded with nature’s laws and therefore was beneficial to society; those who lost out in the socioeconomic struggle had demonstrated their unfitness. In contrast, They contended that social reforms instituted by the government upset the competitive order decreed by nature; by favoring the least fit, these ill-conceived reforms weakened the nation.
In The Man versus the State (1884), British philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) rejected the idea that evils of all kinds should be dealt by the state. Committed to a philosophy of extreme individualism, Spencer never abandoned the view that the state was an evil and oppressive institution. He favored a society in which government would play the smallest role possible and individual freedom would be maximized. Social Darwinists regard racial and national conflict as a biological necessity, a law of history, and a means to progress. Claiming to rest on the authority of science, these views promoted territorial aggrandizement and military build-up and led many to welcome World War I. The Social Darwinist notion of the struggle of races for survival became a core doctrine of Nazi party after World War I and provided the “scientific” and ethical justification for genocide. The leading late-nineteenth-century figures in the shaping of a new liberal position were Thomas Hill Green(1836-1882), D. G. Ritchie(1853-1903), J. A. Hobson(1858-1940), and L. T. Hobhouse(1864-1929). In general, these thinkers argued that laissez faire protected the interests of the economically powerful class and ignored the welfare of the nation. Those advocates of state intervention contended that the government has a moral obligation to create social conditions that permit the individual’s self-realization. Overcoming a traditional liberal mistrust of state power, those progressives assigned the state a positive role in improving social conditions and insisted that state actions need not threaten individual freedom. To support the theoretical foundation for the British welfare state Ritchie and Hobhouse tried to reinterpret Darwinist theories in terms of social reform.