Let every man be happy in his own way. Inasmuch as the dollar might have been turned into capital and given to a laborer who, while earning it, would have reproduced it, it must be regarded as taken from the latter. Every step of capital won made the next step possible, up to the present hour. Economically speaking, aggregated capital will be more and more essential to the performance of our social tasks. They note great inequality of social position and social chances. They are useful to spread information, to maintain esprit de corps, to elevate the public opinion of the class. He is the man who wants alcoholic liquors for any honest purpose whatsoever, who would use his liberty without abusing it, who would occasion no public question, and trouble nobody at all. Such projects demoralize both parties, flattering the vanity of one and undermining the self-respect of the other. Nothing has ever made men spread over the earth and develop the arts but necessitythat is, the need of getting a living, and the hardships endured in trying to meet that need. Persons and classes have sought to win possession of the power of the state in order to live luxuriously out of the earnings of others. I suppose that other components of humanity feel in the same way about it. Gambling and other less mentionable vices carry their own penalties with them. Anyone, therefore, who cares for the Forgotten Man will be sure to be considered a friend of the capitalist and an enemy of the poor man. Capital is force, human energy stored or accumulated, and very few people ever come to appreciate its importance to civilized life. In days when men acted by ecclesiastical rules these prejudices produced waste of capital, and helped mightily to replunge Europe into barbarism. There is a plain tendency of all civilized governments toward plutocracy. So it ought to be, in all justice and right reason. The reason for this lies in the great superiority of personal management over management by boards and committees. The reason for the excesses of the old governing classes lies in the vices and passions of human naturecupidity, lust, vindictiveness, ambition, and vanity. There are no such men now, and those of us who live now cannot arrange our affairs by what men will be a hundred generations hence. Such cooperation is a constant necessity under free self-government; and when, in any community, men lose the power of voluntary cooperation in furtherance or defense of their own interests, they deserve to suffer, with no other remedy than newspaper denunciations and platform declamations. For if a time ever comes when there are men of this kind, the men of that age will arrange their affairs accordingly. Employees have a much closer interest in each other's wisdom. Discussions are made to bear upon the assumed rights, wrongs, and misfortunes of certain social classes; and all public speaking and writing consists, in a large measure, of the discussion of general plans for meeting the wishes of classes of people who have not been able to satisfy their own desires. Capital is also necessary to establish the ties of common action under the higher forms. What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. They assume to speak for a large, but vague . Next, we have come to think that that is the right way for things to be; and it is true that a change to a sound and normal condition would for a time hurt us, as a man whose foot has been distorted would suffer if he tried to wear a well-shaped boot. It accepts the burden, but he must be cancelled from the ranks of the rulers likewise. They have been set free. It would be a correct statement of the facts intended, from an historical and sociological point of view, to say, "Only a small fraction of the human race have as yet, by thousands of years of struggle, been partially emancipated from poverty, ignorance, and brutishness." That We Must Have Few Men, If We Want Strong Men. Salaried men and wage-receivers are in precisely the same circumstances, except that the former, by custom and usage, are those who have special skill or training, which is almost always an investment of capital, and which narrows the range of competition in their case. The term is used, secondly, by a figure of speech, and in a collective sense, to designate the body of persons who, having neither capital nor land, come into the industrial organization offering productive services in exchange for means of subsistence. Where population has become chronically excessive, and where the population has succumbed and sunk, instead of developing energy enough for a new advance, there races have degenerated and settled into permanent barbarism. Part of the task which devolves on those who are subject to the duty is to define the problem. When, rather, were his name and interest ever invoked, when, upon examination, it did not plainly appear that somebody else was to winsomebody who was far too "smart" ever to be poor, far too lazy ever to be rich by industry and economy? Hence they perished. The employee fulfils the contract if he obeys orders during the time, and treats the capital as he is told to treat it. It is not true that American thread makers get any more than the market rate of wages, and they would not get less if the tax were entirely removed, because the market rate of wages in the United States would be controlled then, as it is now, by the supply and demand of laborers under the natural advantages and opportunities of industry in this country. This does not mean that one man has an advantage against the other, but that, when they are rivals in the effort to get the means of subsistence from nature, the one who has capital has immeasurable advantages over the other. He has to pay both ways. Will anyone deny that individual black men may seem worse off? It is a social science. The fact in sociology is in no wise different. No newspapers yet report the labor market. Sumner claims that those individuals who cannot support themselves or contribute to society through they labor and capital ought not to share in the political power of the state. It is automatic and instinctive in its operation. I have said something disparagingly in a previous chapter about the popular rage against combined capital, corporations, corners, selling futures, etc., etc. "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other". It is, therefore, only one science among all the sciences which inform us about the laws and conditions of our life on earth. A free man, a free country, liberty, and equality are terms of constant use among us. What is the Austrian School of Economics. There is an almost invincible prejudice that a man who gives a dollar to a beggar is generous and kind-hearted, but that a man who refuses the beggar and puts the dollar in a savings-bank is stingy and mean. In all the discussions attention is concentrated on A and B, the noble social reformers, and on D, the "poor man.". Of course it is only a modification when the undertaking in question has some legitimate character, but the occasion is used to graft upon it devices for obtaining what has not been earned. At first all labor was forced. He and they together formed a great system of factories, stores, transportation, under his guidance and judgment. WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER (1884) BY WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER Read by Morgan A. The locomotive is only possible today because, from the flint knife up, one achievement has been multiplied into another through thousands of generations. Private ownership of land is only division of labor. It is all the stronger on that account, because intelligent men, holding the same general maxims of policy, and obtaining the same information, pursue similar lines of action, while retaining all the ease, freedom, and elasticity of personal independence. The danger of minding other people's business is twofold. Then some light might be thrown upon the obstinate fallacy of "creating an industry," and we might begin to understand the difference between wanting thread and wanting a thread mill. If he knows political economy, he will know what effect on wealth and on the welfare of society one course or another will produce. Under the wages system the employer and the employee contract for time. Do not attempt to generalize those interferences or to plan for them a priori. Hence the relations of sympathy and sentiment are essentially limited to two persons only, and they cannot be made a basis for the relations of groups of persons, or for discussion by any third party. The problem itself seems to be, How shall the latter be made as comfortable as the former? The discussion of "the relations of labor and capital" has not hitherto been very fruitful. The greatest reforms which could now be accomplished would consist in undoing the work of statesmen in the past, and the greatest difficulty in the way of reform is to find out how to undo their work without injury to what is natural and sound. If the societythat is to say, in plain terms, if his fellow men, either individually, by groups, or in a massimpinge upon him otherwise than to surround him with neutral conditions of security, they must do so under the strictest responsibility to justify themselves. As we would expect, income is a powerful determinant of the social class into which people place themselves, as is, to a lesser degree, education. Here we are, then, once more back at the old doctrinelaissez faire. The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. Capital and labor are the two things which least admit of monopoly. This device acts directly on the supply of laborers, and that produces effects on wages. The laborer likewise gains by carrying on his labor in a strong, highly civilized, and well-governed state far more than he could gain with equal industry on the frontier or in the midst of anarchy. So it should be, and under such a state of things there is no reason to desire to limit the property which any man may acquire. In the second place, if a natural philosopher should discuss all the bodies which may fall, he would go entirely astray, and would certainly do no good. One of the oldest and most mischievous fallacies in this country has been the notion that we are better than other nations, and that government has a smaller and easier task here than elsewhere. In its widest extension it comes to mean that if any man finds himself uncomfortable in this world, it must be somebody else's fault, and that somebody is bound to come and make him comfortable. To go on and plan what a whole class of people ought to do is to feel oneself a power on earth, to win a public position, to clothe oneself in dignity. If anybody is to benefit from the action of the state it must be Some-of-us. Their schemes, therefore, may always be reduced to this typethat A and B decide what C shall do for D. It will be interesting to inquire, at a later period of our discussion, who C is, and what the effect is upon him of all these arrangements. The penalty of ceasing an aggressive behavior toward the hardships of life on the part of mankind is that we go backward. Among the lower animals we find some inchoate forms of capital, but from them to the lowest forms of real capital there is a great stride. A big protected factory, if it really needs the protection for its support, is a heavier load for the Forgotten Men and Women than an iron-clad ship of war in time of peace. But our modern free, constitutional states are constructed entirely on the notion of rights, and we regard them as performing their functions more and more perfectly according as they guarantee rights in consonance with the constantly corrected and expanded notions of rights from one generation to another. It is the common frailty in the midst of a common peril which gives us a kind of solidarity of interest to rescue the one for whom the chances of life have turned out badly just now. It is plainly based on no facts in the industrial system. Certainly, liberty, and universal suffrage, and democracy are not pledges of care and protection, but they carry with them the exaction of individual responsibility. The man who has capital has secured his future, won leisure which he can employ in winning secondary objects of necessity and advantage, and emancipated himself from those things in life which are gross and belittling. The great hindrance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital. He does not thereby acquire rights against the others. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by. In fact, one of the most constant and trustworthy signs that the Forgotten Man is in danger of a new assault is that "the poor man" is brought into the discussion. Neither is there any possible definition of "the weak." On the one side, the terms are extended to cover the idle, intemperate, and vicious, who, by the combination, gain credit which they do not deserve, and which they could not get if they stood alone. So far the most successful limitation on plutocracy has come from aristocracy, for the prestige of rank is still great wherever it exists. They do not take their achievements as a fair measure of their rights. March 29, 20127:15 AM. There is no man, from the tramp up to the President, the Pope, or the Czar, who can do as he has a mind to. The possession of capital is, therefore, an indispensable prerequisite of educational, scientific, and moral goods. Nevertheless, a strike is a legitimate resort at last. Employers formerly made use of guilds to secure common action for a common interest. In general it is used, and in this sense, to mean employers of laborers, but it seems to be restricted to those who are employers on a large scale. They were fit neither to cope with the natural difficulties of winning much food from little land, nor to cope with the malice of men. These conflicts are rooted in the supposed reality that one group wins only at the expense of another group. The fact is that there is no right whatever inherited by man which has not an equivalent and corresponding duty by the side of it, as the price of it. Is it wicked to be rich? If we can come to an understanding of what capital is, and what a place it occupies in civilization, it will clear up our ideas about a great many of these schemes and philosophies which are put forward to criticize social arrangements, or as a basis of proposed reforms. The consequence is that the wealth-power has been developed, while the moral and social sanctions by which that power ought to be controlled have not yet been developed. The French writers of the school of '48 used to represent the badness of the bad men as the fault of "society." But if we can expand the chances we can count on a general and steady growth of civilization and advancement of society by and through its best members. Contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent the law allows. Consequently the philanthropists never think of him, and trample on him. At one time, no doubt, feudalism was an organization which drew together again the fragments of a dissolved society; but when the lawyers had applied the Roman law to modern kings, and feudal nobles had been converted into an aristocracy of court nobles, the feudal nobility no longer served any purpose. We have an instance right at hand. We cannot say that there are no classes, when we are speaking politically, and then say that there are classes, when we are telling A what it is his duty to do for B. It is supposed that the fight is between the workmen and their employers, and it is believed that one can give sympathy in that contest to the workmen without feeling responsibility for anything farther. We cannot get a revision of the laws of human life. It does not assume to tell man what he ought to do, any more than chemistry tells us that we ought to mix things, or mathematics that we ought to solve equations. All this mischief has been done by men who sat down to consider the problem (as I heard an apprentice of theirs once express it), What kind of a society do we want to make? The farmers have long paid tribute to the manufacturers; now the manufacturing and other laborers are to pay tribute to the farmers. Our disposition toward the ills which our fellow man inflicts on us through malice or meddling is quite different from our disposition toward the ills which are inherent in the conditions of human life. what social classes owe to each other summary and analysis. On the other hand, a man whose labor and self-denial may be diverted from his maintenance to that of some other man is not a free man, and approaches more or less toward the position of a slave. But a high standard of living restrains population; that is, if we hold up to the higher standard of men, we must have fewer of them. It is relegated to the sphere of private and personal relations, where it depends not at all on class types, but on personal acquaintance and personal estimates. They would have been comparatively helpless. So be it; but he cannot escape the deduction that he can call no man to his aid. It is a pure misfortune to the community, and one which will redound to its injury, if any man has been endowed with political power who is a heavier burden then than he was before; but it cannot be said that there is any new duty created for the good citizens toward the bad by the fact that the bad citizens are a harm to the state. He has no claims against society at all. Strikes in industry are not nearly so peculiar a phenomenon as they are often thought to be. If a strike occurs, it certainly wastes capital and hinders production. Except matters of health, probably none have such general interest as matters of society. This carries us back to the other illustration with which we started. In the prosecution of these chances we all owe to each other goodwill, mutual respect, and mutual guarantees of liberty and security. It is soon seen, however, that the employer adds the trade union and strike risk to the other risks of his business, and settles down to it philosophically. Reddit's Top Investing and Trading Communities Strategy & Education. Anyone in the world today can have raw land by going to it; but there are millions who would regard it simply as "transportation for life," if they were forced to go and live on new land and get their living out of it. That is the fundamental political principle. Let us translate it into blunt English, and it will read, Mind your own business. We cannot blame our fellow men for our share of these. All this is more or less truculently set forth. Hence human society lives at a constant strain forward and upward, and those who have most interest that this strain be successfully kept up, that the social organization be perfected, and that capital be increased, are those at the bottom. a nous connais ! That we have lost some grace and elegance is undeniable. To say that a popular government cannot be paternal is to give it a charter that it can do no wrong. So ingrained is this model of society that it is rarely questioned in public life today. If some of them are economical and prudent in the midst of a class which saves nothing and marries early, the few prudent suffer for the folly of the rest, since they can only get current rates of wages; and if these are low, the margin out of which to make savings by special personal effort is narrow.

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