75

“Social Darwinism is wrong in many respects, but the intense dislike of it shown today is also partly due to its conflicting with the fatal conceit that man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes”. This excerpt from Friedrich Hayek’s last book highlights the ambivalence of his perception of “social Darwinism” and of its main promoter, Herbert Spencer. While some suggested conceptual similarities between Spencer and Hayek’s thought, few commented upon the fact that the latter’s appreciation of the former was overall negative. This apparent paradox is resolved if we consider that its function is to protect Hayek against accusations of “social Darwinism”. While his laudatory reference to Darwin allows Hayek to rely on an unquestioned scientific authority – at the expense of a distortion of key Darwinian ideas – , his pejorative mention of Spencer seems to be meant to wave aside theoretical parallelisms that could be drawn between those two thinkers. JEL Classification: B25