![]() In that environment Stalin was indeed one of the fittest. In the Soviet Union the fittest got the best food, houses, cars, and more, but fitness meant the ability and willingness to be untrustworthy, unscrupulous, and bloodthirsty. He did so by lying, manipulating, intimidating, and murdering, all on a massive scale. Was Joseph Stalin particularly fit? He certainly didn’t produce much that other people valued yet he thrived. That raises the question: What is “fit?” The answer to that depends crucially on the context-that is, on what is rewarded. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes social Darwinism as “the theory that persons, groups, and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin had perceived in plants and animals in nature.” “According to the theory,” says the Encyclopedia, “the weak were diminished and their cultures delimited, while the strong grew in power and in cultural influence over the weak.” The Encyclopedia states that social Darwinists “held that the life of humans in society was a struggle for existence ruled by ‘survival of the fittest,’ a phrase proposed by the British philosopher and scientist Herbert Spencer.” ![]() Moreover, the fact that Obama is president is evidence of social Darwinism. But by the Encyclopedia Britannica’s characterization, social Darwinism is simply a correct, ideology-free statement about the world. Last April President Obama called a House Republican budget plan “thinly veiled social Darwinism.” Of course Obama meant it as a put-down.
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