ildren under the age of 14 and women (Goldfield, et al, 1998, p. 569). Eventually, such negative impacts provoked public alarm, fueled as well by public horror over the consequences of Social Darwinism charging Hitler’s attempt to secure domination and build a supreme race. The result during the United States postwar decades was development of social ideas in economic thought, making fundamental departure from the pure, Social Darwinist doctrine and creating a rationale for welfare state. Americans by this time likewise longed for a coherent vision of urban life to replace the chaotic outcomes for the believers of Social Darwinism. Regulated, consumer-based capitalism became the norm, with grossly divergent income patterns created in America’s competitive-based society offset by growing the United States Social Security, welfare and dependent care laws enacted between the 1930's and present time. As a result, with regard to its outward demonstrations, the American version of Social Darwinism in the form of a regulated capitalist economy appears sound and healthy. “The contemporary economic indicators are essentially positive, unemployment is falling, inflation is low and essentially stable, profits are generally high, industrial production is close to capacity . . . and the stock market averages are at or close to record levels,” observes economist Vernon Briggs (1998, p. 473). However, social indicators pointing to the quality of contemporary life are “almost universally morbid and depressing” (Briggs, 1998, p. 473). Even with such measures designed to regulate runaway capitalism and control losses which isolate those less privileged, the relationship between Social Darwinism and Social Welfare is apparently a fragile balance. The competitive principles built-in capitalist economies mean, by definition, that there will be winners and losers. Economist Lester...
