A few weeks ago, ThinkProgress published an exposé of the allegedly ugly roots of Rand Paul’s “libertarianism.” The title of the piece tells you all you need to know: “Rand Paul’s favorite philosophers Think Poor People Are ‘Parasites.'”

In addition to the usual unsympathetic and uninformed attack on Ayn Rand, the piece produces some scary-sounding stuff from Murray Rothbard and, every leftist’s favorite 19th century Victorian bogeyman, Herbert Spencer.

As does almost every hit piece on Spencer ever written, ThinkProgress brings out what is arguably the ugliest quote in Social Statics. Regarding those who fall into poverty as a result of their own bad choices, Spencer writes:

If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die.

And just like almost every hit piece on Spencer ever written, ThinkProgress fails to quote or even acknowledge the opening line of the very next paragraph:

Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated: albeit there is unquestionably harm done when sympathy is shown, without any regard to ultimate results. But the drawbacks hence arising are nothing like commensurate with the benefits otherwise conferred.

If the folks at ThinkProgress can’t be bothered to read four lines down, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that they display no evidence of having read the rest of Spencer’s book. Let alone any of his other books.

Spencer’s political philosophy is still widely misunderstood. So, as my small part in an ongoing effort to correct this misunderstanding I’ve written a new paper which attempts to dispel some common misconceptions, and to arrive at a more accurate understanding of Spencer’s thought. “Social Darwinism and Social Justice: Herbert Spencer on Our Duties to the Poor” is available for download on SSRN, and will be published later this year in a Routledge volume on Distributive Justice Debates in Social and Political Thought: Perspectives on Finding A Fair Share. 

As an added incentive to take a look, here’s a tease – did you know that Spencer actually gave a qualified endorsement to the Poor Law? As a general rule, he thought that public welfare was a violation of the “law of equal freedom.” But he did explicitly argue that under certain circumstances, a Poor Law could be compatible with the requirements of justice. Want to know why? Read the paper!