Don't Forget the Forgotten Man!

(“The Forgotten Man”: painting by Jon McNaughton in 2011, marking a tragic moment in American history: the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The titular figure sits in front, slumped and despondent over the fact that Obamacare doctors may at any time order him to be forcibly sterilized; though the procedure will at least be covered by insurance--so, thanks, Obama!)

“The Forgotten Man is the man who is never thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social speculator and philanthropist…” William Graham Sumner, “The Forgotten Man” (1883)

 “Who is the forgotten man...? I know him as intimately as my own undershirt. He is the fellow that is trying to get along without public relief... In the meantime the taxpayers go on supporting many that would not work if they had jobs.” (Unknown, quoted by Amity Shlaes in The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression)

“Trump’s not taking any crap. I mean, he’s taking on political correctness; he’s taking fights that a lot of people want to see fought. The forgotten man that he speaks to is a person that finally feels like they’re being taken seriously, they’re being paid attention to. And Trump is concerned about their issues.” Paul Ryan (June 2019)

The “Forgotten Man” was the creation of William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), one of the most influential of America’s social commentators/critics of the 19^th century; for what it’s worth, Sumner avoided service in the Civil War by paying $250 (borrowed from a friend) to have someone else serve in his place—that sort of thing being legal in the day. Freed from his civic obligation, Sumner then headed off to Europe, subsidized by his father and some friends, where he studied in Switzerland, in Germany, and at Oxford in England. Returning home, he became an ordained Episcopal priest in New Haven, Connecticut and spent his professional life teaching, preaching, and lecturing at Yale, where he was, by all accounts, enormously popular.

Self-made man that he was (with a little help from his friends and family), Sumner was an advocate of laissez faire economics and, according to some, a “social Darwinist”. ¹ That latter designation may or may not have been accurate, but regardless, Sumner’s description and defense of America’s Forgotten Man lives on.

As the Paul Ryan quote above indicates, the Forgotten Man’s descendants are now Trump voters, because in Trump they trust and because Trump takes them and their issues seriously (meaning, he caters to their prejudices); meanwhile, the populist artist Jon McNaughton chronicles for the ages this unlikely alliance of a bombastic, self-promoting New York City plutocrat with “economically disenfranchised” blue-collar Americans in flyover country.   

Since the Forgotten Man is now a pivotal slice of America’s demographic and electoral pies, here is an excerpt from William Graham Sumner’s memorable brief (written in 1883) on his behalf:

Now you know that ‘the poor and the weak’ are constantly put forward as objects of public interest and public obligation; but except the pauper, the man who cannot earn his living or pay his way, there is no possible definition of a ‘poor’ man, and except a man who is incapacitated by vice or by physical infirmity, there is no definition of a ‘weak’ man. The paupers and the physically incapacitated are an inevitable charge on society. But the weak who constantly arouse the pity of humanitarians and philanthropists are the shiftless, the imprudent, the negligent, the impractical, and the inefficient, or they are the idle, the intemperate, the extravagant, and the vicious. Now the troubles of these persons are constantly forced upon public attention, as if they and their interests deserved especial consideration, and a great portion of all organized and unorganized effort for the common welfare consists of attempts to relieve these classes of people…

Whatever capital you divert to the support of a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some other employment, and that means from someone else…capital is force. If it goes one way it cannot go another. If you give a loaf to a pauper, you cannot give the same loaf to a laborer. Now this other man, this laborer, who would have got it had it not been for the charitable sentiment which bestowed it on a worthless member of society, is the Forgotten Man. The philanthropists and humanitarians have their minds all full of the wretched and miserable whose case appeals to compassion, attacks the sympathies, takes possession of the imagination, and excites the emotions. They push on towards the quickest and easiest remedies and they forget the real victim.

Now who is the Forgotten Man? He is the simple, honest laborer, ready to earn his living by productive work. We pass him by because he is independent, self-supporting, and asks no favors. He does not appeal to the emotions or excite the sentiments. He only wants to make a contract and fulfill it, with respect on both sides and favor on neither side. He must get his living out of the capital of the country. The larger the capital is, the better living he can get. Every particle of capital which is wasted on the vicious, the idle, and the shiftless is so much taken from the capital available to reward the productive and independent laborer.

We stand with our backs to the productive and independent laborer all the time. We do not remember him because he makes no clamor; but I appeal to you whether he is not the man who ought to be remembered first of all, and whether, on any sound social theory, we ought not to protect him against the burdens of the good-for-nothing…

Every man is bound to take care of himself and his family and to do his share in the work of society. It is totally false that one who has done so is bound to bear the care and charge of those who are wretched because they have not done so. The silly popular notion is that the beggars live at the expense of the rich, but the truth is that those who eat and produce not, live at the expense of those who labor and produce. ² The next time that you are tempted to [contribute] to a charity…I ask you to stop and remember the Forgotten Man and understand that if you put your [money] in a savings bank it will go to swell the capital of the country which is available for division amongst those who, while they earn it, will reproduce it with increase.

Or you could give your money to Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, I suppose, so that Trump can continue his tireless work on behalf of Vladimir Putin the Forgotten Man: and if you believe that, then Maria Butina, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Roger Stone would like to talk to you about some amazing deals they have to offer.  

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¹ Was William Graham Sumner a “social Darwinist”? Judge for yourself: “If we let nature alone, she cures vice by the most frightful penalties. It may shock you to hear me say it, but when you get over the shock, it will do you good to think of it: a drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be. Nature is working away at him to get him out of the way, just as she sets up her processes of dissolution to remove whatever is a failure in its line.” I wonder if nature was able to remove the “failure” who took Sumner’s place in the Union army, or whether that hapless soul survived the war only to become one more drunkard in the gutter?

² “Useless eaters” is the current term of art for what Sumner called “those who eat and produce not.” Its origin is uncertain, but it is reminiscent of Nazi terminology such as “Life unworthy of life,” “human ballast,” “empty shells of human beings,” etc. For his part, President Trump employs such phrases as “human scum” and “s--thole countries”; he also particularly likes using the word “animal” to describe Mexicans, and words like “sick,” “evil,” and “treasonous” to describe his political opponents. The Forgotten Man is apparently fond of invective.   

Comments

[Ann Markle]

I kind of like “useless eater:” it defines little donny pretty well.