David Bromwich offers a historical take on progressive economic values on Huffpo:
else, pass on to work as your own boss, and end by employing others, he
is going back further than Theodore Roosevelt. This was a favorite
topic with Abraham Lincoln, a politician whose ideas of labor and
progress were memorably captured in his Address to the Wisconsin State
Agricultural Society (September 30, 1859). "The prudent, penniless
beginner in the world," said Lincoln, "labors for wages awhile, saves a
surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself; then labors on his
own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to
help him." That the prosperous employer should assist the beginner was
a natural corollary, for Lincoln, of his understanding of non-slave
labor. Selfishness or, as he called it, "self-interest" was a symptom
of a slavish mind, and incompatible with the high morale of democracy.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite Frost poems, "Two Tramps in Mud Time." Frost is chopping wood in his back yard, giving "a loose to my soul," when two big guys come walking out of the April mud and stare at him:
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.
…Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right–agreed.
He wanted to take my job for pay.
Beautiful poem, it ends with Frost justifying his selfish love and work. But you get the point.
Give employment to others, those who can. Very democratic…
