Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1936-03-19
MORGAN, THEORIST OF THE
LEISURE CLASS
(The NatiOn)

LEISURE CLASS
(The Nation)
The inquiry into the House of Nor
gan has come and gone, and for those
who doubted that it would turn up
anything of value it has yielded fin
ally a theory and definition. Both
were contributed by Mr.. Morgan him
SELF and both referred to the leisure
class. The theory was that the leis-
ure class is the basis of civilization.
The definition, added at the request
of reporters after the formal hearing,
and evidently in the nature of a re-
considered judgment, was that the
leisure class was "all who can afford
to hire a maid"
That meant, Mr. Morgan added,
perhaps thirty million families"
The estimate seems overgenerous. It
would include every family alive in
the country today, and a few dead
ones as we'll. Actually, there are
3,43S,OOO women engaged in domestic
and personal service, of whom slight
ly more than a third are household
servants. Even if you spread them
out one to family, that means not
much over a million families who
have been able to hire a maid.
But even if Mr.. Morgan is a con-
fused statistician, he got good press
as a social theorist. He deserved it
richly Americans have been treated
to discussions of the leisure class by
radicals and sociologists, but the men
of wealth themselves have been chary
of discussing it. 1t will be recalled
that the last important American con-
tribution to the theory of the leisure
class was by Thorstein Veblen, who
wrote an acid book on the subject.
But Veblen, being a professor and a
son of the soil, was an outsider. The
Morgans are different. The elder
Morgan was something of mathema-
tician in his own right, and as a pa
tron and cOnnOisseur of the arts he
followed the tradition of the merchant
princes of the Renaissance. The lean
ings of the present Morgan, if we
can judge from the Nye committee
record, seem to be toward a social
philosophy of the leisure class. 1t
was a subject he was certain to il
lumine and adorn. After ALL he
ought to know.
IF you destroy the leisure class"
Mr.. Morgan warned the Nye commit
tee, you destroy civilization. Civili-
cations have died before, but they al
ways come back. How great the dan
ger would be I've never been able to
decide" These speculations on his
furnish a welcome contrast to Henry
FOrd's now historic conviction that
history is bunk. Like Spengler and
other German philosophers, Mr.. Nor
gan has a cyclical theory of history.
Like them also he considers a leisure
class the carriers of civilization in
stead Of-following Veblen-its para
site. In fact, in its ultimate terms,
Mr.. Morgan's, theory Isl not necessarily
peSSimiStic. Those who are concerned
about the prospect for our generation
will be consoled when they remember
Mr.. Morgan's certainty that civiliza-
tiOns come back. That should help
us to confront the forces that are
leading to war and barbarism.
But however optimistic for civiliza-
ton, Mr.. Morgan fears for the leisure
class itself. What is the nature of his
fears? How will the leisure class be
destroyed? Not by war, surely, since
it is predOminately the common man
who fights the wars and gets de-
stroyed by them. Not by the blight
of depression and initiation that fol-
low war, for those bear more heav-
lily on workers than on the leisure
class. Not by revolution, surely. Mr..
Morgan was talking to the committee
about taxes. His fear was that the
leisure class would be destroyed by
taxation, and in order to save the
leisure class and civilization as we'll
he was advocating that the costs of
war be shifted to the lower-income
groups.
This makes us more certain than
ever that the leisure class that Mr..
Morgan had in mind was not the
family of five" with one maid. It
was the class that has to bear the
burden of the excess-profits tax in
war. The heaven of theory is never
very far from the earth of economic
interest.