What Social Classes Owe to Each Other

What Social Classes Owe to Each
Other, by

William Graham Sumner This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere
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Title: What Social Classes Owe to Each Other
Author: William Graham Sumner
Release Date: June 16, 2006 [EBook #18603]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's
Note: | | | | The original from which this text is transcribed uses an | |
unusual capitalization style which has been faithfully | | reproduced. | | |

| Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this | | text. For a
complete list, please see the bottom of this | | document. | | | | With no
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WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER

By WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER

First published by Harper & Brothers, 1883

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD 5
INTRODUCTION 7
I. ON A NEW PHILOSOPHY: THAT POVERTY IS THE BEST
POLICY 13
II. THAT A FREE MAN IS A SOVEREIGN, BUT THAT A
SOVEREIGN CANNOT TAKE "TIPS" 25
III. THAT IT IS NOT WICKED TO BE RICH: NAY, EVEN, THAT
IT IS NOT WICKED TO BE RICHER THAN ONE'S NEIGHBOR 38
IV. ON THE REASONS WHY MAN IS NOT ALTOGETHER A
BRUTE 51

V. THAT WE MUST HAVE FEW MEN, IF WE WANT STRONG
MEN 63
VI. THAT HE WHO WOULD BE WELL TAKEN CARE OF MUST
TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF 71
VII. CONCERNING SOME OLD FOES UNDER NEW FACES 88
VIII. ON THE VALUE, AS A SOCIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE, OF
THE RULE TO MIND ONE'S OWN BUSINESS 97
IX. ON THE CASE OF A CERTAIN MAN WHO IS NEVER
THOUGHT OF 107
X. THE CASE OF THE FORGOTTEN MAN FARTHER
CONSIDERED 116
XI. WHEREFORE WE SHOULD LOVE ONE ANOTHER 132

FOREWORD
Written more than fifty years ago--in 1883--WHAT SOCIAL
CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER is even more pertinent today than
at the time of its first publication. Then the arguments and
"movements" for penalizing the thrifty, energetic, and competent by
placing upon them more and more of the burdens of the thriftless, lazy
and incompetent, were just beginning to make headway in our country,
wherein these "social reforms" now all but dominate political and
so-called "social" thinking.
Among the great nations of the world today, only the United States of
America champions the rights of the individual as against the state and
organized pressure groups, and our faith has been dangerously
weakened--watered down by a blind and essentially false and cruel
sentimentalism.
In "Social Classes" Sumner defined and emphasized the basically

important role in our social and economic development played by "The
Forgotten Man." The misappropriation of this title and its application to
a character the exact opposite of the one for whom Sumner invented the
phrase is, unfortunately, but typical of the perversion of words and
phrases indulged in by our present-day "liberals" in their attempt to
further their revolution by diverting the loyalties of individualists to
collectivist theories and beliefs.
How often have you said: "If only someone had the vision to see and
the courage and ability to state the truth about these false theories
which today are attracting our youth and confusing well-meaning
people everywhere!" Well, here is the answer to your prayer--the
everlasting truth upon the greatest of issues in social science stated for
you by the master of them all in this field. If this edition calls this great
work to the attention of any of you for the first time, that alone will
amply justify its republication. To those of you who have read it before,
we commend it anew as the most up-to-date and best discussion you
can find anywhere of the most important questions of these critical
days.
--WILLIAM C. MULLENDORE
Los Angeles, California November 15, 1951

WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER
INTRODUCTION
We are told every day that great social problems stand before us and
demand a solution, and we are assailed by oracles, threats, and
warnings in reference to those problems. There is a school of writers
who are playing quite a rôle as the heralds of the coming duty and the
coming woe. They assume to speak for a large, but vague and
undefined, constituency, who set the task, exact a fulfillment, and
threaten punishment