Is Capitalism a Form of Social Darwinism?

Discovery Institute's Podcast

On this episode of the Discovery Institute Podcast, host David Boze interviews Dr. Richard Weikart about the concept behind a loaded term that President Obama recently used to declaim Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal--"Social Darwinism." Popularized in the 1950s, the term carries connotations of racism, eugenics, and Nazism. However, as Dr. Jay Richards points out in his recent article on the subject in National Review, leading advocates of economic freedom have seen it as supportive of, not detrimental to, human rights and welfare. Richard Weikart is Professor of History at California State University and the author of From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany.