“All history is only one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others, and might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others.”  William Graham Sumner

It’s easy to assume that William Graham Sumner is speaking of today’s growing economic disparity between the super-rich and everyone else.  His comment, however, was made in 1883.  And he was not condemning the rich for exploiting the poor; quite the contrary, he was condemning the poor for seeking “civil liberties” which would have reduced the economic disparity between the robber barons of that age and everyone else.

Sumner argued that resources used to help the poor, the aged or the infirm took resources away from those who were contributing to society.  Sumner spoke against the same “takers” that Mitt Romney so famously condemned during the last election cycle.  Both Sumner and Romney subscribed to the view that helping the less-fortunate enables the poor to “win the joys of the earth” at the expense of the rich.

Yet the fact that these same words, spoken by a long-ago Social Darwinist (one who believes that only the economically strong deserve to survive) also perfectly encapsulate the views of Progressives dating from before the time of Sumner.  The difference in interpreting who is exercising “power over their fellow men” is at the philosophical crux of today’s hyper-partisan political landscape.

Conservatives see the wealthy as “job creators” who, by paying wages to workers, pump money into the economy.  Thus conservatives see taxing the rich to fund programs like Social Security, unemployment and universal healthcare as threatening the economic well-being of the nation.

Progressives, on the other hand, see the most affluent 1% of Americans as disproportionately benefiting from the labor of the remaining 99%.  Progressives cite statistics showing that for decades now the wealthy have prospered much more than everyone else.  Progressives say that the super-rich have won “the joys of the earth” at the expense of working men and women.

This is a dramatic example of how people can view the same situation in completely opposite ways and we are a highly divided nation as a result.

One of the first casualties of America’s long struggle to come to terms with economic disparity has been reason.  Yet this hasn’t stopped either side from trying to support its position through research.  The latest attempt comes from researchers at the Universities of Maryland and Minnesota, Safa Motesharre, Jorge Rivas and Eugenia Kalnay, who have extensively analyzed human societies to find what causes them to collapse.

These researchers observe that societal collapse is much more the rule than the exception in human history.  They conclude that it has primarily been the depletion of natural resources – with the use of those resources disproportionately benefiting a small, elite class – that has led to disaster.  They say that is what’s happening today.

This research supports what Progressives have long feared, that the wealthy who have gained “power over their fellow men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others,” and shifted “the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others,” threaten the future of society itself.

These researchers note, however, that “collapse can be avoided…if the depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.”  Let’s hope we can rise above our differences and heed this lesson from the past.  For those who forget the past, after all, are doomed to repeat it…