Herbert Spencer: Philosophy

Renouned British sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer was always a staunch and unusually cruel individualist in all of his writing, being the product of a nonconformist background. He believed that the functions of the state should be limited to protect the well-being of individuals, fearing that an overly powerful state could undermine their development. The functions of a Spencerian state were severely limited, going little past the bare necessity of protection for the masses. No restrictions would be placed on commerce, for that would hinder individual development in the economic sense. Furthermore, no provisions were to be made for social welfare or education, for only the individuals who deserved those benefits through hard work, self-determination, or natural "social position" should be entitled to get them through their situations.

Spencer extensively applied the new Darwinian concepts of evolution of species to social relationships. His primary norm was the analagy between social and individual organisms. While in an individual organism, there would be one consciousness relating to the whole, it would be much different in social organisms, where consciousness would exist in each member only. Therefore, society existed solely for the benefit of its members, and not the other way around. All existence had grown through a series of transformations from simple to complex by successive differentiations. Civilization, in particular, was the process in which man adjusted to an increasingly complex social environment. In this situation, the evolutionary process of Darwinism (the concept of change in species as a result of competition and conflict for greater reproductive opportunity and inheritance of desirable traits; the "survival of the fittest" and "elimination of the unfit" through that struggle) without social intervention led to social improvement. In essence, Spencer equated the poor and needy in society as the "unfit" strata of evolution. All efforts made to help them, through social legislation, public charity, and social reconstruction, were undesirable because they might mature and pass on their "weaknesses" to other members of society. The whole effort of nature was to "get rid of" the "inefficient" and "make room" for the "better" of society. If current conditions were not sufficient for someone to live, then they were "unfit," and it was in society's "best interests" that they died.