Social Darwinism: Selected Essays

William Graham Sumner, an American social scientist of the late nineteenth century, was one of the great writers and theorists in the libertarian heritage. Brilliant, tough-minded and a scintillating stylist, Sumner is always must reading for libertarians, and especially now when fuzzy sentimentality is so much the vogue. Realizing that industry and progress requires liberty and the society of contract as opposed to war, statism and the society of status, Sumner was also a thoroughgoing anti-militarist and anti-imperialist, and these essays bring together some of his best writing on problems foreign and domestic. "War," for example, "Socialism," "State Interference" and "The Absurd Attempt to Make the World Over." But particularly important are two essays: one is the unfortunately forgotten "Democracy and Plutocracy," where Sumner presents a hard-hitting "pre-Kolko" critique of the statist measures caused by big business groups and warns of the rising movement for a blend of business and government which he called "plutocracy." The other is a little gem, "The Forgotten Man," one of the great classics of libertarian thought. This essay alone is worth the price of admission. Here Sumner identifies statist "reform" measures as A and B (the reformers) putting their heads together to decide what C should be made to do for D (the "protected," the alcoholic or whatever). C, the one who loses and suffers from all this, Sumner well names "The Forgotten Man." He is the taxpayer, the man whom Prohibition, for example, prevented from an occasional drink, "the man who, if let alone, would make a reasonable use of his liberty without abusing it. He would not constitute any social problem at all...."

William Graham Sumner was a great libertarian whose writings are timeless and have an instructive message for us all. There is no better introduction to Sumner than through these essays.

Reviewed by Murray N. Rothbard / Political Philosophy (180 pages) / BFL Price $1.95