William Graham Sumner

“What the Social Classes Owe to

Each Other”
 Biography
• 1840- Born in Paterson, New Jersey
• 1866- Studied theology and philosophy at
Oxford
• 1869- He left Yale to be rector of churches in
NYC and Morristown, NJ
• 1872- Became the first professor of political and
social science at Yale
• 1907- Produced a work that gave him worldwide
renown, “Folkways”
• 1910- Sumner died in Englewood, NJ
 Main Points
• The State has one obligation and that is
to ensure the safety of the people

“also whether there is anything but a

fallacy and a superstition in the notion that
“the State” owes anything to anybody
except peace, order, and the guarantee of
rights”
 Main Point #2

• It is God’s and Nature’s intent that everyone will have

hardships, and who are we to change this.

“But God and Nature have ordained the chances and

conditions of life on earth once and for all. The case
cannot be reopened. We cannot get a revision of the laws
of human life. We are absolutely shut up to the need and
duty, if we would learn how to live happily, of
investigation the laws of Nature, and deducing the rules
of right living in the world as it is”

“Certain ills belong to the hardships of human life. They

are natural. They are part of the struggle with Nature for
existence”
 Main Point #3

• The gains of some imply the loss of others

“ We shall find that all the schemes for

producing equality and obliterating the
organization of society produce a new
differentiation based on the worst possible
distinction…the right to claim and the duty to
give one man’s effort for another man’s
satisfaction! We shall find that every effort to
realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of
liberty.”
 Main Point #4
• Our first duty is to take care of himself and mind
your own business

“ Every man and woman in society has

one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her
own self.”

“..there is a danger that a man may leave

his own business unattended to; and second,
there is a danger if an impertinent interference
with another’s affairs”
 Main Point #5
• Our society does well under a contract,
because contracts are rational.
“ Contract, however, is rational- even
rationalistic. It is also realistic, cold, and matter-
of-fact. A contract relation is based on a
sufficient reason, not on custom or prescription.
It is not permanent. It endures only so long as
the reason for it endures.”
 Main Point # 6
The Forgotten Man is the person who suffers quietly,
works hard, and takes care of himself.

“He passes by and is never noticed, because he has

behaved himself, fulfilled his contracts, and asked for
nothing……”

“He will be found to be worth, industrious, independent, and self-

supporting. He is not technically, “poor” or “weak” he minds his
own business, and makes no complaints. Consequently the
philanthropists never think of him, and trample on him….”
 Main Point #7
• “The pursuit of happiness” should not be
confused with the possession of happiness
“Rights do not pertain to results, but only
to chances. They pertain to the conditions of the
struggle for existence….It cannot be said that
each one has a right to have some property,
because if one man had such a right some other
man or men would be under a corresponding
obligation to provide him with some property.”