Introduction: racial apartheid conceptions of world politics

As noted in Chapter 1, in the conventional or popular imagination scientific racism is thought to constitute the pinnacle of imperialist thought, especially in its Darwinian and Eugenicist guises with the latter often associated with Adolf Hitler. A typical characterization here has it that with the application of Darwinian science to human affairs in the nineteenth century so

But while this is certainly a fair summary of some parts of social Darwinism, nevertheless Herbert Spencer – often imagined as the godfather of this approach – expresses not only an anti-imperialist politics but also an optimistic, progressive teleological conception of historical development that would end with the inauguration of a peaceful world. In this particular respect, Spencer’s laissez-faire social Darwinism shares far more in common with the anti-paternalist/anti-imperialist Eurocentrism of Smith and Kant than it does with the various racist-imperialist conceptions. Paul Crook puts his finger on the acute paradox that emerges at this juncture: