The position of the Social Darwinists was different. Economic society was an arena in which men met to compete. The terms of the struggle were established by the market. Those who won were rewarded with survival and, if they survived brilliantly, with riches. Those who lost went to the lions. This competition not only selected the strong but developed their faculties and ensured their perpetuation. And in eliminating the weak, it ensured that they would not reproduce their kind. Thus the struggle was socially benign and, to a point at least, the more merciless, the more benign its effects, for
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