This passage is excerpted from William Graham Sumner, “The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over,” originally published in 1894. Sumner was an outspoken economist and highly influential sociology professor at Yale University.
It will not probably be denied that the burden of proof is on
those who affirm that our social condition is utterly diseased
and in need of radical regeneration. My task at present,
therefore, is entirely negative and critical: to examine the
allegations of fact and the doctrines which are put forward to
prove the correctness of the diagnosis and to warrant the use of
the remedies proposed.
When anyone asserts that the class of skilled and unskilled
manual laborers of the United States is worse off now in
respect to diet, clothing, lodgings, furniture, fuel, and lights; in
respect to the age at which they can marry; the number of
children they can provide for; the start in life which they can
give to their children, and their chances of accumulating
capital, than they ever have been at any former time, he makes
a reckless assertion for which no facts have been offered in
proof. Upon an appeal to facts, the contrary of this assertion
would be clearly established. It suffices, therefore, to challenge
those who are responsible for the assertion to make it good.
Nine-tenths of the socialistic and semi-socialistic, and
sentimental or ethical, suggestions by which we are
overwhelmed come from failure to understand the phenomena
of the industrial organization and its expansion. It controls us
all because we are all in it. It creates the conditions of our
existence, sets the limits of our social activity, regulates the
bonds of our social relations, determines our conceptions of
good and evil, suggests our life-philosophy, molds our
inherited political institutions, and reforms the oldest and
toughest customs, like marriage and property. I repeat that the
turmoil of heterogeneous and antagonistic social whims and
speculations in which we live is due to the failure to understand
what the industrial organization is and its all-pervading control
over human life, while the traditions of our school of
philosophy lead us always to approach the industrial
organization, not from the side of objective study, but from that
of philosophical doctrine. Hence it is that we find that the
method of measuring what we see happening by what are
called ethical standards, and of proposing to attack the
phenomena by methods thence deduced, is so popular.
The advance of a new country from the very simplest social
coordination up to the highest organization is a most interesting
and instructive chance to study the development of the
organization. It has of course been attended all the way along
by stricter subordination and higher discipline. All organization
implies restriction of liberty. The gain of power is won by
narrowing individual range. The methods of business in
colonial days were loose and slack to an inconceivable degree.
The movement of industry has been all the time toward
promptitude, punctuality, and reliability. It has been attended
all the way by lamentations about the good old times; about the
decline of small industries; about the lost spirit of comradeship
between employer and employee; about the narrowing of the
interests of the workman; about his conversion into a machine
or into a “ware,” and about industrial war. These lamentations
have all had reference to unquestionable phenomena attendant
on advancing organization. In all occupations the same
movement is discernible in the learned professions, in schools,
in trade, commerce, and transportation. It is to go on faster than
ever, now that the continent is filled up by the first superficial
layer of population over its whole extent and the intensification
of industry has begun. The great inventions both make the
intension of the organization possible and make it inevitable,
with all its consequences, whatever they may be. I must expect
to be told here, according to the current fashions of thinking,
that we ought to control the development of the organization.
The first instinct of the modern man is to get a law passed to
forbid or prevent what, in his wisdom, he disapproves.
Now the intensification of the social organization is what
gives us greater social power. It is to it that we owe our
increased comfort and abundance. We are none of us ready to
sacrifice this. On the contrary, we want more of it. We would
not return to the colonial simplicity and the colonial exiguity if
we could. If not, then we must pay the price. Our life is
bounded on every side by conditions.
It will not probably be denied that the burden of proof is on
those who affirm that our social condition is utterly diseased
and in need of radical regeneration. My task at present,
therefore, is entirely negative and critical: to examine the
allegations of fact and the doctrines which are put forward to
prove the correctness of the diagnosis and to warrant the use of
the remedies proposed.
When anyone asserts that the class of skilled and unskilled
manual laborers of the United States is worse off now in
respect to diet, clothing, lodgings, furniture, fuel, and lights; in
respect to the age at which they can marry; the number of
children they can provide for; the start in life which they can
give to their children, and their chances of accumulating
capital, than they ever have been at any former time, he makes
a reckless assertion for which no facts have been offered in
proof. Upon an appeal to facts, the contrary of this assertion
would be clearly established. It suffices, therefore, to challenge
those who are responsible for the assertion to make it good.
Nine-tenths of the socialistic and semi-socialistic, and
sentimental or ethical, suggestions by which we are
overwhelmed come from failure to understand the phenomena
of the industrial organization and its expansion. It controls us
all because we are all in it. It creates the conditions of our
existence, sets the limits of our social activity, regulates the
bonds of our social relations, determines our conceptions of
good and evil, suggests our life-philosophy, molds our
inherited political institutions, and reforms the oldest and
toughest customs, like marriage and property. I repeat that the
turmoil of heterogeneous and antagonistic social whims and
speculations in which we live is due to the failure to understand
what the industrial organization is and its all-pervading control
over human life, while the traditions of our school of
philosophy lead us always to approach the industrial
organization, not from the side of objective study, but from that
of philosophical doctrine. Hence it is that we find that the
method of measuring what we see happening by what are
called ethical standards, and of proposing to attack the
phenomena by methods thence deduced, is so popular.
The advance of a new country from the very simplest social
coordination up to the highest organization is a most interesting
and instructive chance to study the development of the
organization. It has of course been attended all the way along
by stricter subordination and higher discipline. All organization
implies restriction of liberty. The gain of power is won by
narrowing individual range. The methods of business in
colonial days were loose and slack to an inconceivable degree.
The movement of industry has been all the time toward
promptitude, punctuality, and reliability. It has been attended
all the way by lamentations about the good old times; about the
decline of small industries; about the lost spirit of comradeship
between employer and employee; about the narrowing of the
interests of the workman; about his conversion into a machine
or into a “ware,” and about industrial war. These lamentations
have all had reference to unquestionable phenomena attendant
on advancing organization. In all occupations the same
movement is discernible in the learned professions, in schools,
in trade, commerce, and transportation. It is to go on faster than
ever, now that the continent is filled up by the first superficial
layer of population over its whole extent and the intensification
of industry has begun. The great inventions both make the
intension of the organization possible and make it inevitable,
with all its consequences, whatever they may be. I must expect
to be told here, according to the current fashions of thinking,
that we ought to control the development of the organization.
The first instinct of the modern man is to get a law passed to
forbid or prevent what, in his wisdom, he disapproves.
Now the intensification of the social organization is what
gives us greater social power. It is to it that we owe our
increased comfort and abundance. We are none of us ready to
sacrifice this. On the contrary, we want more of it. We would
not return to the colonial simplicity and the colonial exiguity if
we could. If not, then we must pay the price. Our life is
bounded on every side by conditions.