Social Darwinism: The Evolution of Business

Process Paper

          To begin our project, we immediately turned to the inventions of the 19th century, because we knew that those would be easy sources of revolution, reaction, and reform. However, before picking a final topic, we decided that it would be necessary to look at the textbook to be sure we were not missing anything of great interest. By chance, we turned to a page about Darwinism as well as a brief paragraph on Social Darwinism. We had touched on Darwin’s theory in science class in 7th grade, and agreed that it was very revolutionary, and was clearly a cause of reaction. Since Darwinism wasn't a strictly American idea, and Social Darwinism was purely American, we decided to focus on Social Darwinism.
          We started out by looking on the Internet, which was very helpful to us since we found many websites dedicated to Social Darwinism. Our Internet research pointed us toward books about Social Darwinism, which went a little more in-depth about our topic. Through this research, we found mentions of the people who were most involved in the Social Darwinism movement. We began to research specific people, and we found books and speeches from supporters of Social Darwinism. We found more proponents than opponents, which led us to look for more opponents. Most opponents of Social Darwinism were against it for economic or moral reasons. To better understand their reasons for disliking it, we used databases such as eLibrary and Infotrac to find out how Social Darwinism affected businesses, and found information about America's Gilded Age. We also began to look more into the moral reasons to be against Social Darwinism. While we researched this, we realized that this aspect of our topic could be utilized for the theme.
          When creating our website, we mainly organized our tabs by revolution, reaction, and reform, but we also included a page for an overview of Social Darwinism. Getting used to the format of Weebly was hard, but eventually we were able to figure it out and work quite quickly. We found that writing short sentences with bullets worked better to convey our information than paragraph form.  Visuals such as pictures and videos seemed to contribute with the format of the website. While each person contributed a unique skill, we focused on making each part of the project together, to discuss our opinions of the site.
          We applied Social Darwinism to our theme of revolution, reaction, and reform with the effect it had on the economy. Before Social Darwinism came to America, proponents of a laissez-faire government used only economics to justify their principles. Social Darwinism gave people a new “scientific” reason for “non-government involvement”. Businesses in America's Gilded Age used it to defend their compensation while smaller businesses lost money. Social Darwinism was also used to excuse not helping the poor because they are not the “fittest” since they are unable to adapt as well as others. Since this way of thinking was against American values, opponents of Social Darwinism reacted fervently. Reform didn’t come around until big businesses began to buy each other out, limiting competition in the market and driving prices up. The government was forced to intervene with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890. This sparked different opinions on government involvement, and Unions were ultimately formed to protect the rights of poor workers.

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