William Graham Sumner: Critic of Progressive Liberalism

In America today, as throughout the West, most people fundamentally accept the “welfare state.” Republican Presidents live happily with huge deficits in government accounts, while conservative politicians no longer challenge Medicare or Social Security. The State has become a pervasive force in every individual’s life, from cradle to grave; it consumes an ever- growing share of national product and employs a sizeable percentage of the labor force. Yet the “positive” state that so many now take for granted is a remarkably recent phenomenon.

Volume 3, Number 3 (1979)