Social Darwinism, Class Conflict, and War: The Interplay between Organicism, Marxian Dialectics, and Military Conflict

Abstract

In this paper, the idea that war has been seen as - and used as - a tool of what Spencer would call 'social Darwinism' is put forward and advanced. The cocurrent evolution of war and society is measured through the understandings of various classical theorists and modern sociologists. Alongside these thoughts, Marxian class conflict is then brought to bear and the entire paper becomes a compare and contrast between organicists and class conflict theories and how war has been view by - and justified by - both throughout history. Ending in a call to arms for the creation of new theories and a re-evalutation of conventional knowledge surrounding class conflict, social Darwinism, and war, this paper calls for another level of sociological analysis on the state, inter-state, and planetary scale.