hello everyone welcome to the jio ecologist I am Dr Krishnan and you have been watching my videos on various topics of geography and environment on channel the Geo ecologist if you are new to our Channel definitely go to our playlist section and check for yourself the earlier videos on our Channel and also if you like these videos don't forget to subscribe to our Channel and also please share the videos with others as well now in today's session in political geography we are going to learn about a very interesting and important Theory which is supposed to be the Benchmark Theory or the building block of political geography that is the organic theory of State given by Frederick radzel the German geographer and also the concepts like lebanstrom and social Darwinism we are going to discuss in this particular session so watch the video till the end to understand the gist of the matter about this particular organic Theory so now let's understand the details of this organic theory of state and also the concept of lebanstrom so if you can see Frederick ratzel 1844-1904 this particular German geographer German scholar ethanographer also we say because his work is also referred in sociology and anthropology so if You observe his concept of lebanstrom became a very important Concept in political arena in 1901 the concept of living space so if You observe organic Theory the word itself is organic so what is organic theory of state it means that state also behaves like a organism so if state starts to behave like an organism it means that we need to look into the nutrition and growth of a state and now what will the state eat to survive to grow so that is where the expansion of this state the idea of nutrition of the country or a state is the territory that it claims for its sovereignty this is supposed to be its food so this kind of idea was there behind this organic theory of State given by radzil and it was largely utilized by Adolf Hitler to justify his ruthlessness expansion on Nazi Germany that you remember so the influence of the Darwin which we say social Darwinism which we are going to also look into this lecture later on and Ernst Hegel zoologist these two people were the main influencers on the minds of this scholar radzil so what you observe he published many articles and books during the last part of 19th century which became the foundations of political geography and that's why he also is sometimes referred to as father of political geography or father of modern political geography so if you look at his work he produced foundations of human geography in his two volume work which we know by the name anthropo geography human-centered geography and this was published in 1882 and 18 91 then in 1896 he published this three volume work the history of mankind in which he talked about how human beings evolved the developmental aspect the political aspect and then the great work called political geography came all the way in 1897 in which these concepts of organic State and all these things were given now when we come to 1901 then social Darwinism and this concept of living space the lebanstrom state behaving like human beings State behaving like living being this concept was further promulgated it was expanded in 1901 and further it gave impetus to other Scholars like Kellen mcinder Ellen Churchill simple and several others and these Scholars took the way forward further looking into the various aspects of political geography so if You observe the organic theory of state will resemble one more theory that we study in physical geography that is this cycle of erosion which also has three stages youth mature and old this is how a living form goes from life to death so this is again the same idea based on Darwin's idea so from youth stage to mature stage to Old Stage how a state grows and emerges big and then it again collapses so if You observe the three stages are youthful States mature State and Old State and they have distinct criteria and characteristics to be understood so if You observe population growth stable cultural identity is the youth stage and observe it if you see in the European situation if you see Mediterranean around areas from Greek or Roman civilization till present you will observe how it has gone from youth stage to mature stage to Old Stage then population stability and cultural evolution is the maturity that you say right and then comes the last stage that is where population starts to decrease and cultural identity starts to break down this is how empires have had their developmental history so if If You observe through Greco-Roman civilization look at this particular part of Europe once this entire land was under Roman Empire and then it collapsed from here and this area was taken up by Byzantine Empire later on it was taken by ottoman Turks so all these civilizations in the European region was based on this expansionist approach and then further maturing and then further declining so this kind of theory holds true in some sense in the European history so this is where the idea was in terms of organic State Theory so if You observe the organic theory of State developed by radzal has certain criteria and assumptions and because it was Germany you can see here Germany and its neighboring country and what Germans planned so what you observe the first criteria is the state as a living organism so the state should be considered or seen as a living organism with its own needs its goals and purpose like we have our own goals and purpose in life as living forms so this organism should should have ability to grow and how it will grow it will grow and adapt to the changing circumstances in the same way like human being does or any animal does or any life form does so this is the prime principle then if You observe control over territory and borders very important so the state should have control over its territories and borders it should have its sovereignty and its size and power should be proportional to the population and resources this is very important criteria and also it's said that it should have ability to expand or contract its borders as per necessity this is where again living form you can picturize how living form can change its territory its shape its physicality this is something which is very important and therefore that you see a strong central government like we have strong central nervous system we have a circulatory system so we have organized body similarly a country or a state should have an organized body with a strong central government so the strong central government represents what it represents the power of decision making taking actions so government should be responsible for ensuring the security and Welfare of citizens and preserving the territorial Integrity of the state right that's where centralization principle lies here then further If You observe competition and Conquest so the state should be seen as engaged in competition and Conquest if you remember biogeography concept the concept of living forms having competition and this is one way to look into States as well so if You observe this competition should lead to the growth and expansion of a state and also much like process of natural selection and evolutionary biology given by Darwin so influenced by Darwin comes the picture social Darwinism so social Darwinism is influence of Darwin's concept of evolution of species and natural selection and also the survival of the fittest on Society on the state so this is something which came into being now let's observe Germany and its surroundings in the map and what Germans it we know that it tried to expand and Annex all the areas around during the second world war and this is where this theory was the influencer behind the idea of expansions of Germans now if you find Social Darwinism as a concept so this was Major influencer on radzil's ideas so Darwin has a great influence the state was an organism and it had to grow and expand in order to survive so it means expansion for survival was must forested this is where the must or the mandatory picture comes into the being so if You observe the idea was in line with contemporary scientific thought of evolutionary biology and we have talked about Darwin and Heckle and several others so they all talked about the life forms and exactly we should replicate these life forms in terms of our governance as well so this idea of Darwin was perceived as the rational behind the law making of the state the governance of the state and also expansion of the state so if You observe the term from Darwinism was first coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in March 1861 and when it was coined when he was reviewing the work of the Darwin that is origin of species of 1859 and then subsequently social Darwinism came into the picture all the way in 1877. so if You observe the article the history of land holding in Ireland this is for the first time where Joseph Fisher used the word social Darwinism and then it was published in transactions in Royal historical society as well and since then many scholars improvised their own thoughts like Herbert Spencer like Ellen Churchill simple and several others we have studied in earlier theories as well and this led to the idea of geopolitical theories which are also called The Classical theories so if You observe here that this theory was the main rationale behind the capitalism which was promoted we say lazy Fair capitalism free-flowing capitalism and political conservation in Europe also what it led to was class stratification justification it meant what that naturally inequalities are there amongst individual and it's those individuals who survive are the fittest ones to govern to rule so it means weakness is inherent in living beings is the main idea behind this thought and then what You observe is the attempts to reform Society through State intervention or other means would therefore be intervention amongst Nature's plan so if you are changing the society it means what we are doing we are intervening inside the natural plan so less intervention is more natural this was the idea behind promotion of State doing good if they are doing it for the survival of the fittest and then further you see poor where the unfit naturally not sociologically this is what it promoted so they should not be aided the struggle for existence and wealth was a sign of success so people who are wealthy who are powerful should be promoted more this is an idea embedded in this particular thought and if You observe American domination on South American Caribbean States and several others many times this have been criticized and commented in the anti-developmentalist thought processes as well so if You observe the societal level social Darwinism was used to justify understanding of the philosophy and rationalization for imperialist people colonialist people racist policies and remember a section anglo-saction or Aryan cultural being the superior culture comes from this idea of the stronger survives the stronger rules the survival of the fittest this is the natural selection and this is what is influencing the society and governance so this is what led to the Nazis work so if You observe further certain facts and consequences because of this Theory so if You observe first is the expansion of political geography so the root of radzil was in geography where the state was conceived as organic and also it led to the expansion of physical geography and relationship of geography with politics this was the first idea then if You observe influence of the social Darwinism on Nazi's ideology the living space livings from and it Justified expansionist policy during World War II and then further If You observe criticism of nationalism understand one more thing that many times Razzle's organic theory of state was seen as some as criticism of nationalism as well as it emphasized on need for a stronger centralized government and importance of the state was as a unified organism rather than collection of individual ideas so it said that we cannot have collection of individual ideas rather than one idea should Prevail one organism should Prevail and then if You observe connection to environmentalism also it's sometimes thought because it tries to observe the natural order right it justifies the natural selection process and then if You observe it became processors to the many other geopolitical theories of Kalin of josefer that we have talked and many other theories like machiner's Heartland theory rimland Theory and several other political geostrategic theories came later on which had imprints of this particular Theory so that's why social Darwinism levels from an organic theory of state became really the foundation stones of political geography so what you observe the relevance of this Theory and criticism of this theory in today's world so relevance of organic theory of State can be said to be limited in today's world why because the theory is outdated and it has been discredited why it has been discredited because the ideas of social Darwinism does not exist anymore in the way it was thought to be because it does not reflect the current understanding of state and its relationship with citizens and environment the world has changed now however some aspects of Razzle Theory still hold true to relevance in certain areas of the world in certain ways and is discussed today for example the idea of State as a living organism with its own needs and goals is still used in political science and political geography in understanding in international relations and the behavior of states is analyzed using this Theory many times also if You observe rational's emphasis on relationship between geography and politics has also a lasting impact and continues to be study in the field of geopolitics and geopolitical theories now what is noteworthy here that rejecting harmful and discredited ideas that are Central to this particular theory is very important so rejection of imperialism rejection of social Darwinism things related to it is very important here and in today's world when it has changed with technology with times we have seen the world becoming global global these phenomena of integration of the world in different ways what you're observing here is the idea is to promote equality Equity fairness compassion intergenerational and intergenerational Equity sustainable development so if you want to look into this you need to reject the wrongdoings of this particular idea of social Darwinism and that led to the problems in the world which we have seen through the historical development so this is what we say is the idea of removal of discrimination violence and justification in the name of natural selection and survival of the fittest should not be done so now when we have learned about the various aspects of this particular organic theory of State lemons from Social Darwinism in today's session in these sessions to come we'll be talking more on other aspects of political geography electoral geography and several others so stay tuned stay subscribed keep watching learning and sharing our videos and for our paid courses you can visit our website the Goa colleges.com or also you can download our study app that is the Geo ecologist from your Play Store so all the best wishes to all the Learners take care