The ArgumentIn contrast to “socialist eugenics” as a set of ideas on how to deal with the biological problems of mankind, “proletarian race hygiene” placed its emphasis on the environmental components of human life. This mode of eugenics always assumed a change in living conditions, or social milieu, to be the key to human betterment. Its objective was a gradualist, thoroughgoing improvement of human working and living conditions in order to bring about a life of harmony, solidarity and equality. These (...) ideas can be traced back to phrenomesmerism at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and developed through a stage closely entwined with the Marxist thought of Daniels, Engels, Bebel, etc.. This tradition was picked up in the early twentieth century by the Austrian sociologist Goldscheid as well as by the developmental biologist Kammerer. These men extended these ideas and incorporated them into the framework of “proletarian race hygiene,” involving as key concepts what they called “human economy” and “organic technology.”. (shrink)