# William Graham Sumner Yale professor and leading American Social Darwinist of the Gilded Age who argued that economic competition was a natural law, that wealth concentration reflected biological fitness, and that government intervention to help the poor was both futile and harmful. His essay "The Forgotten Man" (1883) — co-opted by both FDR and later by conservative revisionists — framed the taxpayer as the real victim of progressive reform. Sumner's ideas provided the intellectual foundation for [[Free Market Fundamentalism]] and anticipate the modern libertarian arguments deployed by the [[Koch Network]] against regulation and redistribution. *Stub — expand with: What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, relationship to Spencer, influence on modern libertarianism, "Forgotten Man" genealogy from Sumner to Amity Shlaes to Trump.* ## Works - [[What Social Classes Owe to Each Other]] (1883) ## Notable Quotes - [[William Graham Sumner - negligent shiftless inefficient silly and imprudent]] — *What Social Classes Owe to Each Other*, 1883