Social Darwinism
It has been claimed that "the survival of the fittest" theory in biology was interpreted by late 19th century capitalists as "an ethical precept that sanctioned cut-throat economic competition" and led to the advent of the theory of "social Darwinism" which was used to justify laissez-faire economics, war and racism. However, these ideas pre-date and commonly contradict Darwin's ideas, and indeed their proponents rarely invoked Darwin in support. The term "social Darwinism" referring to capitalist ideologies was introduced as a term of abuse by Richard Hofstadter's "Social Darwinism in American Thought" published in 1944.