Page "Evolution of cooperation" Paragraph 19

The Social Darwinists ' view is derived from Charles Darwin's interpretation of evolution by natural selection, which is explicitly competitive (" survival of the fittest "), Malthusian (" struggle for existence "), even gladiatorial (" red in tooth and claw "), and permeated by the Victorian laissez-faire ethos of Darwin and his disciples ( such as T. H. Huxley and Herbert Spencer ).

What they read into the theory was then read out by Social Darwinians as scientific justification for their social and economic views ( such as poverty being a natural condition and social reform an unnatural meddling ).