I can't decide whether it is more an effort to retain money and resources in the hands of an elite, or if it is really about race and a need for superiority. Both?

What do you think?

The eugenics movement as a theory is definitely about manufacturing a superior race, in practice... ?  Really could swing either way.

I really completely wholeheartedly dislike that way of thinking.

Either way, it's really all about common stupidity. All you need is basic genetics to understand the horrible truth: Genetic diversity is what's keeping us afloat as a species. Whether the intention is to improve the genepool by culling the "inferior" population or by breeding smart people with smarter people to produce a superior population stratum, the overall result is a reduction of diversity, which is stupid. As for race, it doesn't exist, so artificially improving on it is stupid. Populations exist, with mainly cultural and visual differences, rather than genetic ones. Together, the populations form a species. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sure we all know what happens when you breed dogs with nothing else in mind but some completely irrelevant feature, such as the hair color or the shape of the ears. In a few generations, the whole breed becomes dumb, sick, short lived, sterile etc... That's also the fate of the superrace. The first couple of generations may be highly intelligent, but after that, they'll be mainly just sick. Thus, by tampering with the genepool, the elite will slowly eliminate its own offspring, which I consider an extremely stupid thing to do. Anyway, those who are allowed to procreate or who get to mate with the genetically most eligible candidate, are invariably chosen by their socioeconomic status, rather than their absolute perfection, so the whole system is flawed from the start. Disguising elitism as genetic hygiene is called self deception. If you take a turd, dress it up nicely and call it Prince Charming, does it still stink?

If you cross the smartest man in the world with the smartest woman in the world, what do you get? You get an unhappy nerd with acne and psychosocial problems. What do you get if you take a perfectly ordinary nerd with acne off the street and tell him he's going to be the most successfull man who ever lived, because his real parents were the smartest man and woman in the world? If you play your part covincingly enough, you get Bill Gates.

What do you get when you choose a random population, any population, outlaw it, randomly kill it and chase it across Europe for a couple of thousand years? You get Albert Einstein. That's practical genetics in action.

A lot of if was that it was do-gooders thinking they were doing the most compassionate thing.

Get rid of the Jews, blacks, or immigrants that bred a lot/had big families & were poor etc. A way to improve society - weed out the inferior people and there would be less poverty and disease in society as a whole.