Customer Reviews

What Social Classes Owe To Each Other

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First published in 1883, Sumner's "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other" is an excellent source for the promotion of limited government. Sumner talks about the "Forgotten Man" in context to the socio-political and economic of a state. He defines the differences between the "weak", "poor" and the "burden" and how the humanitarians, reformers and the philathropists of our society seek forced charities from the "Forgotten Man" to support the above. In this book he promotes the principles of democracy and voluntary charity. He gives solid reason and logical explainations about his philosophy. I higly recommend this 145 page read to the students of Political Theory and Philosophy.

No author has ever done a better job, in such a short book, of taking the bark off the socialist concepts of one social class owing anything to another. The philosophy of Sumner, who was a professor at Yale, (but a great thinker, nonetheless!) has shown up in the rhetoric of many politicians throughout this century. The Marxist idea of forced redistribution of the wealth is profoundly defeated. Every politician should be required to read this book before taking office. Sumner's caustic pen and penetrating analysis make this one of the best five I've ever read in the Annals of Freedom.

I have found no other work that so clearly destroys the foundations of socialism in so few pages as this work. The rhetoric is fertile ground for effective debate, as it rarely uses gobblygook economic theory... which fortunately was not around at the time this work was written. No Supply/demand curves here.

Whatever you think of William Graham Sumner's argument, he expresses classical Social Darwinist theory quite eloquently. The title of the book, "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other," is answered by the author, essentially, as: "nothing." At one point in his body of work, he noted that life is like "Root, hog, or die." You have to work hard to make it or. . . .

A classic line from this work illustrates the logic (Page 17): "certain ills belong to the hardships of human life. They are natural. They are part of the struggle with Nature for existence. We cannot blame our fellow-men for our share of these. My neighbor and I are struggling to free ourselves from these ills. The fact that my neighbor has succeeded in his struggle better than I constitutes no grievance for me."

If you have value as a person, you will "make it." And those who cannot make it have no claim on the bounty that your success has created. It is a perspective that can be associated with the phrase "Nature, red in tooth and claw." A battle, a struggle for survival between individuals.

Most biologists of behavior today would reject this mano e mano perspective, noting that altruism and cooperation are a considerable part of human nature--as is conflict.

In his day, though, Sumner was a major figure, along with Herbert Spencer and others, in the Social Darwinist movement.

Book is unreadable due to hundreds of strange typos, such as this one on section 1 page 3: "especially by JTgTTTrgTi Hvn'tprp|jrLwhi<?]i a,".

The book I received looks exactly like the one in the picture above* (linked below), and was published by "General Books" and says it was made via OCR software. There appears to be no quality control on the product.

* it appears my review is included for all publications which is not what I intended. Amazon will not let me link a picture from their own website, so I will describe the bad book:

Publisher General Books (generalbooks . net)

beige or light brown plain cover

words on the cover are:
What Social
Classes Owe to
Each Other

William
Graham
Sumner

"What ought All-of-us to do for some-of-us? But some-of-us are included in all-of-us and, so far as they get the benefit of their own efforts, it is the same as if they worked for themselves, and tehy must be cancelled out of All-of-us. Then the question which remains is, What ought Some-of-us do for Others-of-us, or, What do social classes owe to eachother?"



This is the question William Graham Sumner poses and attempts to answer in What Do Social Classes Owe to Eachother. His answer, in brief, is that, the minute we suggest that social classes owe anything to eachother is the minute that some become the dictators of others and, by result, liberty is fractured.

Sumner starts out by championing civic liberty and the idea that all persons have an equal right to their own earnings. Tamper with this, he writes, and no matter how good the intention, some will begin to rule others. By extension, Sumner reminds us that talk about "the State" as if it is a benevolent abstraction misses the fact that "the State" - particularly in a democratic country - is just some individuals governing other individuals.

Sumner spends a good deal of time talking about the ideas of capital and labor. Capital is the means of production, and labor is the effort put forth to make capital into things we use. In Sumner's time, and in ours, there is much championing of the labor force but little championing of those who hold capital. Sumner, like Rand after, reminds us that labor needs capital to create wealth. Unlike Rand, however, Sumner reminds us taht just as much as labor needs capital, capital needs labor (in order to make it into something). For the reviewer below, who complains that Sumner is too individualistic, it is remarkable to note how many times Sumner stresses this, and similar, points: labor and capital need eachother, and the economy cannot function unless we all are doing our parts (harkening back to Adam Smith's division of labor and invisible hand.)

Lastly, Sumner talks about the "forgotten man." "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... I call C the Forgotten Man." While much is always made of the rich being made to give to the poor, all too often, what happens is that the rich (who are often in power) decide that the middle class will give to the poor. Therefore, those who are on the verge of bettering themselves via their own effort are forced to give to those who are not, when their money could have been used to create more wealth (by making money, buying goods, and helping others who are trying to better their lot in the process.)

In our own time, Sumner's book is a very interesting defense of economic liberty and the danger of statism and regulation. As you can see, the argument is much more philosophical than economic (whether capitalism leads to a better economy is secondary to whether it is morally justified). My biggest complaint is that the argument is somewhat myopic, and Sumner relies on rhetoric a bit too much. (Sumner does not consider the difficulties in his argument, like what to do with those who lack the ability to do for themselves do to no fault of their own, like the handicapped. A difficult moral case, which is perhaps why Sumner doesn't bring it up.)

Anyhow, this is a good read for a cogent defense of the morality of capitalism and perils of do-gooding statism.

Sumner was the leading 19th century American champion of what for decades was called Social Darwinism, and what is now re-branded as "Libertarianism" by its contemporary proponents, a set of ideas originally popularized by English thinker Herbert Spencer. Sumner's thinking is essentially prejudices and cliché's about how the poor have no one to blame but themselves for their plight. It's theoretical grounding insofar as it has one is John Locke's imaginary self-reliant individuals who appear ready-made outside society, and who come together to create society and its institutions to better protect their liberty and property through limited government based on the rule of law. The emergence of Social Darwinism/Libertarianism in Sumer and others as a latter-day expression of this fantasy-world of the self-actualizing propertied citizen is directly connected with challenges to the laissez-faire version of capitalism already evident in the first British factory legislation in the first decade of the 19th century regulating child factory labor in the textile industry. By the time Sumner publishes this book, British legislation had already forced employers to give up much of the cheap labor of children, set the standard work-day at ten hours, and mounting pressures in the United States were pushing similar agendas. This book was a push-back against these trends.

I use chapters from this book in a course on modern intellectual history. While it is neither original nor insightful, it is an invaluable documentation of the true face of Social Darwinism. Sumner is writing well before regulation of working conditions has advanced very far in the U.S., when child factory labor, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, low wages and insecurity are still the norm in American industrial capitalism. He is nonetheless fighting a rear-guard battle to maintain laissez-faire in the face of mounting criticism even within parts of the propertied classes. This explains the contempt and dismissiveness with which he address the conditions of the poor and poorly paid, and why he presents the owners of property and capital as the victims of unjust exploitation at the hands of those who wish to fleece them for the benefit of the lazy and shiftless (his words). He is in fact driven by the logic of Social Darwinism/Libertarianism to defend the indefensible at a time when the consequences of unregulated capitalism are all-too obvious for all to see: those who have great wealth deserve it; those who live in a misery that one could hardly find today in the centers of advanced, prosperous - and highly regulated - capitalism are exactly where they belong. This text should be read by anyone who might be seduced by the chimera of contemporary Social Darwinism; at least Sumner is far more honest about the world he is prepared to accept and live in than are his modern Libertarian disciples.

The book is accurate in asking the question that the title implies. It is a good persuasive argument.

"Not a damn thing." As George Stigler summarized this classic case for laissez faire.