@Fides_et_Ratio: I have a distaste for Blockean libertarianism, as well. Take, for example, Block’s Defending the Undefendable - while he does make a great logical case that many dishonorable professions should not be illegal (e.g. pimping, drug dealing, etc.), he completely overlooks the social importance of not allowing certain kinds of behavior to be “above ground”.
I still need to study the issue in more depth but I think prostitution may be a good example where in every society I am aware of there has tended to be a half-heartedly enforced illegality. I think what is going on here is that if prostitution were just above-ground, out there, no problems, can be advertised anywhere, etc. etc. it would have an erosive effect on the family structure, that is, the prostitution industry would succeed in reeling in men who - so long as they keep it out of mind - would rather not partake. But then, at the same time, prostitution is an integral part of human nature - every culture ever has had prostitution, legal or illegal. So, the “enlightened ruler” will find the compromise in formally prohibiting it (no advertisements, no obviously standing out on street corners showing your leg, etc.) but will informally turn a blind eye so long as it is not blatant enough to catch the attention of the bourgeois middle class.
But Block doesn’t consider any of this. He just follows this lobotomized version of Rothbard’s propertarianism - the pimp and the prostitute aren’t violating anyone’s property rights, so no one has any business doing anything against them. In fact, the pimp is to be lauded as a hero of the free market in that he risks his life and property in order to produce a service demanded by the market despite the constant threat of harassment and imprisonment by the State.
On the particular issue you raised, I have always felt that Block has a crypto-Randian air about him. Of course, the passage you cited is complete horse-shit. Private charity is absolutely not a violation of any kind of Darwinian principle of fitness unless - as vive pointed out - you’re also going to espouse pulling anti-biotics and basically closing down every non-primitive economic activity as a “crutch for the weak.” Think how much more evolutionarily fit we would be if we all had to walk everywhere instead of driving or flying!
As for your wider concern that this makes “libertarians look bad”, I don’t think Block is exactly a mouthpiece of the libertarian movement. One could argue that he is the heir of the propertarian wing of libertarianism as he is, I think, the closest living disciple of Rothbard. But propertarians do not comprise a majority even among anarchist libertarians, let alone libertarians generally.
I want to note that both you and Block are equally confused about the relationship between the Darwinian principle and the social order. Social Darwinism as a prescription is ridiculous. But Darwinism applied to the study of human social behavior is a branch of science called evolutionary psychology. This science is not prescriptive, that is, it doesn’t say “the fittest ought to survive”, it is descriptive, as in, “those who survive and reproduce are those that have been selected.” This is definitional, so it’s not even up for debate. Block is arguing that there is an ought element to this (we ought not give to charity because, Block is contending, it interferes with Darwinian selection).
In addition to evolutionary psychology, there is sociology or the study of the evolution of human society itself. Evolutionary psychology stops around 10,000 years ago at the Agricultural Revolution because human culture and technology began to change at a rate that far outstripped the capacity of genetic evolution to keep up*. Nevertheless, the selection principles at work on the kinds of ideas that survive (memetics) move just as rapidly as cultural/technological evolution. In fact, cultural/technological evolution can be thought of as nothing more than the evolution of ideas (and their effects in the material world, that is, the technological devices that humans produce with these ideas). Sociology is the branch of science that studies these fast-moving factors. And if we restrict our attention to just the voluntary aspect of human interaction within sociology, we are talking about the science of economics.
So, the market is absolutely a Darwinian process, just as social evolution (the evolution of ideas) is, just as the evolution of human nature (evolutionary psychology) is, and so on. Humans are not at all exempt from evolution. And ideas absolutely do have evolutionary consequences on the human population. Bad ideas even have bad evolutionary consequences (e.g. tax-funded welfare programs that subsidize birth rates among poor mothers). But I am shocked that Block would suggest that even private charity is a violation of the Darwinian principle - he needs his head examined for that one.
Clayton -
*This explains a lot of the suffering and misery in the world, by the way - our caveman brains literally do not know how to process our current environment.