John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 96-97, under the heading “Fittest, Survival of the.”

The concept has fallen into disrepute these days. It is said to be cruel, heartless and elitist. But if it is a mistake to concentrate on the “fittest” while ignoring the not so fit, it is equally wrong to concentrate on the not so fit while ignoring the “fittest”. It is merely the opposite side of the same coin.

Modern technology has provided us with the means of providing for those who cannot provide for themselves. Whether or not we do this adequately, of course, is another question. But the relevant point here is that in Australia we do have the capacity to do so; at the moment. If the mass of the population was living at a bare subsistence level, we would not have this capacity. It is only because we have raised the standard of living of the mass of the population that we have the fat to absorb this type of demand comfortably.

Unfortunately, human memories are very short. There is an alarming tendency today to accept the productive capacity of our society as a natural fact, or as if it were a law of nature. It seems to be accepted that we can alter our social structure at will without altering the abundance of our food supply or the existence of all those little manufactured luxuries we now look upon as necessities. In other words, there is a tendency to believe that the problems of production have been solved. All that remains is to solve the problems of distribution. Particularly, it is thought, we have to bring about a more equitable distribution, to take from the “haves” and to give to the “have nots”.

No one could doubt the excellent humanitarian motivation for this desire. No normal person enjoys seeing human misery and suffering, particularly if it is unnecessary. But we should not allow ourselves to become so blinded by our good intentions to redistribute the pie that we forget about what created the pie in the first place.

Modern production is not a natural fact. It is the result of volitional human effort, and as such is a fragile thing. In any society, it depends for its existence on a willingness on the part of the individual people to work. The greater the incentives there are for people to work, the greater are the effort and the capacities that they bring to the task. Like it or not, that is human nature.

Furthermore, while simple effort expended on learned tasks is sufficient to keep the productive machine ticking over, it is not what built it, nor is it sufficient to improve or change it. The great advances in human civilisation have been brought about by the efforts of a relatively few exceptional people — Aristotle, Jesus Christ, Galileo, Newton, the Curies, Edison, for example. We should not forget this. In their well-intentioned efforts to redistribute the pie, successive Australian governments have, by high taxation, excessive regulation, and crippling inflation, severely reduced the incentives to work for most Australians. Unless this is changed, and the incentives restored, the long term prospects for our economy are lousy to worse. And if our economy collapses, how will that possibly help the old, the sick, the handicapped and the underprivileged?

On a broader scale, we must take care not to remove what could be called the “pain functions” from life. If people are insulated from feeling the consequences of their mistakes, there is a tendency for them to keep on making them, or not to care about making them. Unless mistakes carry real consequences, or at the very least, the threat of such consequences, there will be no incentive for anyone to worry about anything. She’ll be right mate.

In the long run, removing the consequences is a cruel rather than a humane action. It allows weakness to become institutionalised in the human race, and sows the seeds for the long term destruction of all human kind.

Thus, while we need not be as cruel in our application of the rule of the survival of the fittest as the animal world is, it nevertheless does carry its message. Australia, the world, mankind, will pay a heavy price if it ignores the laws of nature. And the payments are only just starting.

*****

Further ammunition for Economics.org.au readers:

Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy and State with Power and Market (Auburn, Ala.; Mises Institute, 2004), pp. 1324-1326, titled “Back to the Jungle?”

Many critics complain that the free market, in casting aside inefficient entrepreneurs or in other decisions, proves itself an “impersonal monster.” The free-market economy, they charge, is “the rule of the jungle,” where “survival of the fittest” is the law. Libertarians who advocate a free market are therefore called “Social Darwinists” who wish to exterminate the weak for the benefit of the strong.

In the first place, these critics overlook the fact that the operation of the free market is vastly different from governmental action. When a government acts, individual critics are powerless to change the result. They can do so only if they can finally convince the rulers that their decision should be changed; this may take a long time or be totally impossible. On the free market, however, there is no final decision imposed by force; everyone is free to shape his own decisions and thereby significantly change the results of “the market.” In short, whoever feels that the market has been too cruel to certain entrepreneurs or to any other income receivers is perfectly free to set up an aid fund for suitable gifts and grants. Those who criticize existing private charity as being “insufficient” are perfectly free to fill the gap themselves. We must beware of hypostatizing the “market” as a real entity, a maker of inexorable decisions. The market is the resultant of the decisions of all individuals in the society; people can spend their money in any way they please and can make any decisions whatever concerning their persons and their property. They do not have to battle against or convince some entity known as the “market” before they can put their decisions into effect.

The free market, in fact, is precisely the diametric opposite of the “jungle” society. The jungle is characterized by the war of all against all. One man gains only at the expense of another, by seizure of the latter’s property. With all on a subsistence level, there is a true struggle for survival, with the stronger force crushing the weaker. In the free market, on the other hand, one man gains only through serving another, though he may also retire into self-sufficient production at a primitive level if he so desires. It is precisely through the peaceful co-operation of the market that all men gain through the development of the division of labor and capital investment. To apply the principle of the “survival of the fittest” to both the jungle and the market is to ignore the basic question: Fitness for what? The “fit” in the jungle are those most adept at the exercise of brute force. The “fit” on the market are those most adept in the service of society. The jungle is a brutish place where some seize from others and all live at the starvation level; the market is a peaceful and productive place where all serve themselves and others at the same time and live at infinitely higher levels of consumption. On the market, the charitable can provide aid, a luxury that cannot exist in the jungle.

The free market, therefore, transmutes the jungle’s destructive competition for meagre subsistence into a peaceful co-operative competition in the service of one’s self and others. In the jungle, some gain only at the expense of others. On the market, everyone gains. It is the market — the contractual society — that wrests order out of chaos, that subdues nature and eradicates the jungle, that permits the “weak” to live productively, or out of gifts from production, in a regal style compared to the life of the “strong” in the jungle. Furthermore, the market, by raising living standards, permits man the leisure to cultivate the very qualities of civilization that distinguish him from the brutes.

It is precisely statism that is bringing back the rule of the jungle — bringing back conflict, disharmony, caste struggle, conquest and the war of all against all, and general poverty. In place of the peaceful “struggle” of competition in mutual service, statism substitutes calculational chaos and the death-struggle of Social Darwinist competition for political privilege and for limited subsistence.