It´s not about being the “BEST” or being “BETTER” than others! It´s about safeguarding our deep human instinct. Its not great, just and natural that only the privileged and well groomed in Western societies have the right to survive – or living a peaceful nourished life. It is UNNATURAL to deny it to others.
Social Darwinism abuses Darwin´s good name for strengthening self-interest and legitimising a strictly personal economic agenda in disfavouring empathic extension and cooperation among people. Utilitarian economists like John Stuart Mill´s position or Herbert Spencer who coined “survival of the fittest” – not Darwin – design the altar of “the best physical shape”, “the biggest company”, “the most amount of money” to ideologically justify the worst excesses of rampant capitalism.
To the detriment and disgust of Darwin who tried to rudder back to be associated with this rather Lamarckian interpretation of evolution. He argues with the example of rescuing a stranger from a fire or burning house: “impulses do not by any means always arise from…anticipated pleasure” – or profit or gain. The motivation in question may not come from the expectation of a reward, but from a deep human impulse he calls “SOCIAL INSTINCT”.
It is not useful, even though it may be possible to rationalise the act of rescue with gaining eternal gratitude of the saved one, but this is social currency, not money or power. It is not useful for yourself to endanger you with such rescue missions, even not in the case of being a fire-fighter or police man.
And still it feels right – if you are not buying into the questionable egoistic doctrine of usefulness in a competitive marketplace. We will loose our deep human instinct of what to do and what not if we only worship legitimising big business (the most complex and vertically integrated companies and their mindset) and their interests as being “natural”. No, they are not. This mindset is a “design” dating from the mid 19th century…
Compare: Jeremy Rifkin (2014) The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons and the Eclipse of Capitalism p.63 f