Prince Pyotr Kropotkin

 

The term “survival of the fittest” was coined by the famed 19th century British social theorist Herbert Spencer as a way of characterizing Darwin’s natural selection theory.  Darwin himself soon started using the expression, but it was also embraced by what came to be known as the “Social Darwinists” – various apologists for the free-wheeling, laissez-faire capitalism of that era that featured ruthless economic competition, the brutal exploitation of workers, and extreme inequalities of wealth and poverty.