11-11-2011-RESPONSE

"So far I can find out what the classes are who are respectively endowed with the rights and duties of posing and solving social problems, they are as follows: Those who are bound to solve the problems are the rich, comfortable, prosperous, virtuous, respectable, educated, and healthy; those whose right it is to set the problems are those who have been less successful in the struggle for existence. The problem itself seems to be, how shall the latter be made as comfortable as the former? To solve this problem, and make us all equally well off, is assumed to be the duty of  the former class; the penalty, if they fail of this, is to be bloodshed and destruction. If they cannot make everybody else as well as themselves, they are to be brought down to the same misery as others." 

What Summers is implying in this passage is only the rich and prosperous can help the less prosperous become prosperous. It is the fault of the rich if they cannot make everyone else their equal and it leads to problems that cannot be solved. They may even fall into the same situation as the latter. The rich are only as powerful as they want to be and they can distribute that power to the lower classes if they feel they need to, but if they do not, they will obviously not move.