What Social Classes Owe to Each OtherSumner, William Graham
General
What Social Classes Owe to Each Other
Sumner, William Graham
Economics; Social ethics
If, for instance, we take political economy, that science does not
teach an individual how to get rich. It is a social science. It treats
of the laws of the material welfare of human societies. It is,
therefore, only one science among all the sciences which inform us
about the laws and conditions of our life on earth. Education has for
its object to give a man knowledge of the conditions and laws of
living, so that, in any case in which the individual stands face to
face with the necessity of deciding what to do, if he is an educated
man, he may know how to make a wise and intelligent decision. If he
knows chemistry, physics, geology, and other sciences, he will know
what he must encounter of obstacle or help in Nature in what he
proposes to do. If he knows physiology and hygiene, he will know what
effects on health he must expect in one course or another. If he knows
political economy, he will know what effect on wealth and on the
welfare of society one course or another will produce. There is no
injunction, no "ought" in political economy at all. It does not assume
to tell man what he ought to do, any more than chemistry tells us that
we ought to mix things, or mathematics that we ought to solve
equations. It only gives one element necessary to an intelligent
decision, and in every practical and concrete case the responsibility
of deciding what to do rests on the man who has to act. The economist,
therefore, does not say to any one, You ought never to give money to
charity. He contradicts anybody who says, You ought to give money to
charity; and, in opposition to any such person, he says, Let me show
you what difference it makes to you, to others, to society, whether you
give money to charity or not, so that you can make a wise and
intelligent decision. Certainly there is no harder thing to do than to
employ capital charitably. It would be extreme folly to say that
nothing of that sort ought to be done, but I fully believe that today
the next pernicious thing to vice is charity in its broad and popular
sense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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