The Forgotten Man, and Other EssaysSumner, William Graham
Science
The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays
Sumner, William Graham
Economics; Social sciences
1. The modern industrial system which I have described, with its high
organization and fine division of labor, has one great drawback. The
men, or groups of men, are dissevered from one another, their interests
are often antagonistic, and the changes which occur take the form of
conflicts of interest. I mean this: if a shoemaker worked alone, using
a small capital of his own in tools and stock, and working for orders,
he would have directly before him the facts of the market. He would
find out without effort or reflection when “trade fell off,” when there
was risk of not replacing his capital, when the course of fashion or
competition called upon him to find other occupation, and so on. When a
journeyman shoemaker works for wages, he pays no heed to these things.
The employer, feeling them, has no recourse but to lower wages. It is
by this measure that, under the higher organization, the need of new
energy, or of a change of industry, or of a change of place is brought
home to the workman. To him, however, it seems an arbitrary and cruel
act of the master. Hence follow trade wars and strikes as an especial
phenomenon of the modern system. It is just because it is a system,
or more properly still, an organism, that the readjustments which are
necessary from time to time in order to keep its parts in harmonious
activity, and to keep it in harmony with physical surroundings, are
brought about through this play of the parts on each other.
2. A general movement of labor and capital towards land, throughout the
civilized world, means a great migration towards the new countries.
This does not by any means imply the abandonment or decay of older
countries, as some have seemed to believe. On the contrary, it means
new prosperity for them. When I read that the United States are about
to feed the world, not only with wheat and provisions, but with meat
also, that they are to furnish coal and iron to mankind, that they
are to displace all the older countries as exporters of manufactures,
that they are to furnish the world’s supply of the precious metals,
and I know not what all besides, I am forced to ask what is the rest
of the world going to do for us? What are they to give us besides
tea, coffee, and sugar? Not ships, for we will not take them and are
ambitious to carry away all our products ourselves. Certainly this is
the most remarkable absurdity into which we have been led by forgetting
that trade is an exchange. Neither can any one well expect that all
mankind are to come and live here. The conditions of a large migration
do, however, seem to exist. A migration of population is still a very
unpopular idea in all the older states. The prejudice against it is
apparent amongst Liberals and Tories, economists and sentimentalists.
There is, however, a condition which is always suppressed in stating
the social problem as it presents itself in hard times. That problem,
as stated, is: “How are the population to find means of support?” and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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