"Perhaps they do not recognize themselves, for a rich man is even harder to define than a poor one"
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Sumner’s line lands like a polite shrug that quietly loads the dice. By claiming the “rich man” is harder to define than the poor, he’s not just making an observational point about blurry categories; he’s crafting a defensive fog around wealth. Poverty, in public discourse, is often treated as legible: visible need, obvious lack, measurable hardship. Wealth, he implies, is slippery - layered in assets, status, networks, inheritance, and the kind of social insulation that lets money stop looking like money.
The subtext is strategic: if you can’t define the rich, it’s harder to hold them accountable. Calls for redistribution, taxation, or moral scrutiny depend on naming the target. Sumner, a major voice in Gilded Age social thought, wrote in a period when industrial fortunes were exploding and inequality was becoming undeniable. His work often argued against state intervention and in favor of laissez-faire. In that context, the definitional problem becomes a political tool: ambiguity as ideology.
There’s also a psychological jab embedded in “Perhaps they do not recognize themselves.” It suggests a cultivated innocence among elites, a self-image that frames their position as earned, normal, even precarious - anything but structurally advantaged. The wit here is cool and clinical: the poor are “definable” because society forces them to be; the rich evade definition because society lets them. Sumner captures how power hides in plain sight, then pretends not to see its own reflection.
The subtext is strategic: if you can’t define the rich, it’s harder to hold them accountable. Calls for redistribution, taxation, or moral scrutiny depend on naming the target. Sumner, a major voice in Gilded Age social thought, wrote in a period when industrial fortunes were exploding and inequality was becoming undeniable. His work often argued against state intervention and in favor of laissez-faire. In that context, the definitional problem becomes a political tool: ambiguity as ideology.
There’s also a psychological jab embedded in “Perhaps they do not recognize themselves.” It suggests a cultivated innocence among elites, a self-image that frames their position as earned, normal, even precarious - anything but structurally advantaged. The wit here is cool and clinical: the poor are “definable” because society forces them to be; the rich evade definition because society lets them. Sumner captures how power hides in plain sight, then pretends not to see its own reflection.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wealth |
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