Here’s the transcript: @EnglishwithLiz @Alan @Arinker @NearlyNapping @Anglophile @Masme
Herbert Spencer was a philosopher alive at the same time as Darwin. He published his famous book Social Static just a few years before Darwin brought out Origin. And he too thought that all social safety nets and aid for the poor should be scrapped. He supported what’s called ‘laissez faire,’ where you have a small government that doesn’t do a lot of regulations or interference cause they’ll only end up messing it up! Government, he says, is a necessary evil at best! And Spencer was very influenced by Malthus. He kept a lot of the stuff about hard work being what you’re here to do and the brutality all being part of a grander plan but he wasn’t a Christian and he cut out all the religious stuff: “The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong… are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.” So by the time we get to Spencer this idea that hard work is your lot in life has been secularised. With Malthus you have a miserable life of toil but maybe you get to go to Heaven afterwards. With Spencer… "Nah, you have a miserable life of toil but markets and competition and wars are ultimately good for society.”