Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism refers to various theories that emerged in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s that applied biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics. Social Darwinism posits that the strong see their wealth and power increase while the weak see their wealth and power decrease. Various social Darwinist schools of thought differ on which groups of people are "the strong" and which are "the weak", and also differ on the precise mechanisms that reward strength and punish weakness. Many such views stress competition between individuals in "laissez-faire" capitalism, while others, emphasizing struggle between national or racial groups, support nationalism, authoritarianism, eugenics, racism, imperialism, and/or fascism. The ideology of social Darwinism inspired the perpetrators of genocides including the Armenian genocide.