Ragnar Redbeard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ragnar Redbeard was the pen name of the author of Might is Right, an 1896 book advocating Social Darwinism.

Some suspect Ragnar was a pen name for radical New Zealander Arthur Desmond. Some see it as hard to reconcile the difference in their politics. Some who believe that Desmond was Redbeard, believe the book to have been a work of satire.

Some believe that Jack London wrote Might is Right. As with Desmond the difference in politics is great (London's political activism started in the Marxist Socialist Labor Party and ended in the Socialist Party), and mainstream London-scholars have not supported the assertion that Redbeard was London. Claims that London was Redbeard come, in part, from Satanists; Anton LaVey thought him "the most likely candidate".