I once lived in Germany for two years, but I certainly saw nothing of it there then. A monarchical or aristocratic system is not immoral, if the rights and duties of persons and classes are in equilibrium, although the rights and duties of different persons and classes are unequal. December 23, 2010. They are useful to spread information, to maintain esprit de corps, to elevate the public opinion of the class. WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER. On the side of constitutional guarantees and the independent action of self-governing freemen there is every ground for hope. If the non-capitalists increase their numbers, they surrender themselves into the hands of the landlords and capitalists. The reason for the excesses of the old governing classes lies in the vices and passions of human naturecupidity, lust, vindictiveness, ambition, and vanity. The employer is worried, but that does not raise wages. They never have any doubt of the efficacy of their remedies. Here is a great and important need, and, instead of applying suitable and adequate means to supply it, we have demagogues declaiming, trade union officers resolving, and government inspectors drawing salaries, while little or nothing is done. A little observation shows that there is no such thing in this world as doing as one has a mind to. If, when he died, he left no competent successor, the business must break up, and pass into new organization in the hands of other men. Furthermore, if we analyze the society of the most civilized state, especially in one of the great cities where the highest triumphs of culture are presented, we find survivals of every form of barbarism and lower civilization. It is in human nature that a man whose income is increased is happy and satisfied, although, if he demanded it, he might perhaps at that very moment get more. They are not made because they are needed to meet needs which have been experienced. If the sewing women, teachers, servants, and washer women could once be collected over against the thread mill, then some inferences could be drawn which would be worth something. Aristocrats have always had their class vices and their class virtues. The object is to teach the boy to accumulate capital. The moral deductions as to what one ought to do are to be drawn by the reason and conscience of the individual man who is instructed by science. That means that the personthe center of all the hopes, affections, etc.after struggling as long as he can, is sure to succumb at last. The greatest job of all is a protective tariff. 21 people found this helpful. Nevertheless, a strike is a legitimate resort at last. He goes further to present a completely contrary model of society, one that highlights the capacity for group cooperation. The notion of property which prevails among us today is that a man has a right to the thing which he has made by his labor. Now, the people who are most uncomfortable in this world (for if we should tell all our troubles it would not be found to be a very comfortable world for anybody) are those who have neglected their duties, and consequently have failed to get their rights. what social classes owe to each other summary and analysis William Graham Sumner is a social Darwinist who claimed that people who work hard are rich, while people who do not work as hard are poor. what social classes owe to each other summary and analysis. The majority do not go about their selection very rationally, and they are almost always disappointed by the results of their own operation. They plundered laborers and merchants. The answer is, by capital. It is, therefore, only one science among all the sciences which inform us about the laws and conditions of our life on earth. The new foes must be met, as the old ones were metby institutions and guarantees. The humanitarians, philanthropists, and reformers, looking at the facts of life as they present themselves, find enough which is sad and unpromising in the condition of many members of society. This definition lays the foundation for the result which it is apparently desired to reach, that "a government by the people can in no case become a paternal government, since its lawmakers are its mandatories and servants carrying out its will, and not its fathers or its masters." The feudal code has, through centuries, bred a high type of men, and constituted a caste. It is nothing but the doctrine of liberty. People constantly assume that there is something metaphysical and sentimental about government. The aggregation of large fortunes is not at all a thing to be regretted. Capital is also necessary to establish the ties of common action under the higher forms. The abuses of the public service are to be condemned on account of the harm to the public interest, but there is an incidental injustice of the same general character with that which we are discussing. He made them beasts of draught and burden, and so got the use of a natural force. As should be evident, it is not easy to determine how many social classes exist in the United States. These ills are an object of agitation, and a subject for discussion. The employer is interested that capital be good but rare, and productive energy good and plentiful; the employee is interested that capital be good and plentiful, but that productive energy be good and rare. If, now, he is able to fulfill all this, and to take care of anybody outside his family and his dependents, he must have a surplus of energy, wisdom, and moral virtue beyond what he needs for his own business. Strikes in industry are not nearly so peculiar a phenomenon as they are often thought to be. They generalize these classes, and render them impersonal, and so constitute the classes into social pets. Who is the other man? Our public buildings are jobsnot always, but often. Every improvement in education, science, art, or government expands the chances of man on earth. His interest is invoked to defend every doubtful procedure and every questionable institution. If so, they only get their fair deserts when the railroad inspector finds out that a bridge is not safe after it is broken down, or when the bank examiner comes in to find out why a bank failed after the cashier has stolen all the funds. The upper class consists of all the determined hard workers, while the lower . Think of that construction of this situation which attributes all the trouble to the greed of "moneyed corporations!" It is plain what fallacies are developed when we overlook this distinction. He sent them out to see which of the three would bring him the most valuable present. Agricultural Subsidies: Down on the D.C. Farm, Austrian Economics and the Financial Markets (2010), Austrian Economics and the Financial Markets (1999), Central Banking, Deposit Insurance, and Economic Decline, Choice in Currency: A Path to Sound Money, Depression, Monetary Destruction, and the Path to Sound Money, Despots Left and Right: The Tyrannies of Our Times, The Current Crisis: an Austrian Perspective, Strategies for Changing Minds Toward Liberty, The Coming Currency Crisis and the Downfall of the Dollar, Review of Austrian Economics, Volumes 1-10, History of the Austrian School of Economics. In the United States, the farther down we go in the grade of labor, the greater is the advantage which the laborer has over the higher classes. Science is colorless and impersonal. Society must support him. The truth is that this great cooperative effort is one of the great products of civilizationone of its costliest products and highest refinements, because here, more than anywhere else, intelligence comes in, but intelligence so clear and correct that it does not need expression. It is by this relation that the human race keeps up a constantly advancing contest with nature. The little group of public servants who, as I have said, constitute the state, when the state determines on anything, could not do much for themselves or anybody else by their own force. Capital, however, as we have seen, is the force by which civilization is maintained and carried on. Then the question which remains is, What ought Some-of-us to do for Others-of-us? What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. It costs far more vigilance and exertion to be so under the democratic form, where we have no aids from tradition or prestige, than under other forms. Whenever "people" is used in this sense for anything less than the total population, man, woman, child, and baby, and whenever the great dogmas which contain the word "people" are construed under the limited definition of "people," there is always fallacy. Those who have neither capital nor land unquestionably have a closer class interest than landlords or capitalists. It will provoke a complete rethinking of the functioning of society and economy. In the preceding chapters I have discussed the public and social relations of classes, and those social topics in which groups of persons are considered as groups or classes, without regard to personal merits or demerits. 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. The employers of the United Statesas a class, proper exceptions being understoodhave no advantage over their workmen. William Graham Sumner (18401910) was a sociologist at Yale University, a historian of American banking, and great expositor of classical liberalism. The reader who desires to guard himself against fallacies should always scrutinize the terms "poor" and "weak" as used, so as to see which or how many of these classes they are made to cover. It would be as impertinent to prevent his effort as it is to force cooperation in an effort on some one who does not want to participate in it. The schemes for improving the condition of the working classes interfere in the competition of workmen with each other. 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.
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