“Breed Out the Unfit and Breed In the Fit”

Abstract

Fisher's virulent positions on such themes as "race degeneration", the necessity of sterilization measures for certain categories of the American population, and his urgent call for the control of the genetic quality of new immigrants are hardly consistent with the opalescent subtlety of academic disputes over the nature of capital and interest. Although Fisher repeats it often: in his work, this question of the nature of capital and interest is directly linked to eugenic assumptions and analysis. This second body of Fisherian work illuminates the strong epistemological and theoretical references in Fisher's work as an economist. This paper addresses this question through three major themes: the constant denunciation of a «racial decay» of the American population and its corollary: the project of setting up a «scientific humaniculture»; the plea against the eugenic effects of World War I, and the then haunting question of the closing of the «Golden Door».There is now no reasonable excuse for refusing to face the fact that nothing but a eugenic religion can save our civilization from the fate that has overtaken all previous civilizations.-George Bernard ShawNot only is it in the end more economical to attempt an effort to breed out the disabilities of the human race, but it means a more

Corrado Gini (1884–1965): The Leading Figure of the Italian Group in the Econometric Society

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The “Vanity of the Philosopher”: Analytical Egalitarianism, Associationist Psychology, and Eugenic Remaking?

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Margaret Schabas: The Natural Origins of Economics

“…The expert attempts to view humans from outside (Cot 2005;Leonard 2005;Peart and Levy 2005). It is this cult which Hayek, Rawls and Buchanan struggle to escape.…”