1870-80: Social Darwinism is on the rise in the U.S.
Social Darwinism was popular among some American businessmen of the 1870’s, who saw in the writings of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer the proof that traditional virtues like thrift, self-reliance and hard work were, in fact, a "natural law." William Graham Summer, of Princeton University, argued that millionaires were the "fittest" individuals, because they had been "naturally selected in the crucible of competition." Millionaires like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie believed that Social Darwinism "scientifically" justified all the excesses of industrial capitalism. In the U.S., Social Darwinism also provided ammunition for conservative politicians, who saw in early social welfare proposals a danger for the orderly, "natural evolution" of American society. Similar theories would later resurface in Nazi Germany, where they were used to justify the sterilisation and mass murder of "inferior races" and individuals.
