Michael Foot? Norman Mailer? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: Hostility toward wealthy people has been expressed as follows:
The top is greedy and mean and they will always find a way to take care of themselves.
This statement has been attributed to British politician Michael Foot and U.S. author Norman Mailer. I am unsure because I have not seen a solid citation. Would you please help me?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Prominent author Norman Mailer was hired in 1983 by the London newspaper “The Mail on Sunday” to cover the U.K election. Mailer wrote the following about the Leader of the Labour Party Michael Foot on May 29, 1983. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Foot had a cogent point of view at least. It said: We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and more crippled than ourselves.
That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth and if you ask me about those insoluable economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer, ‘to hell with them. The top is greedy and mean and they will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.’
The phrasing of the text from Mailer was ambiguous. QI believes that Mailer was not directly quoting Foot; instead, Mailer was articulating his own perception of Foot’s opinion.
In 1984 Michael Foot published the book “Another Heart and Other Pulses: The Alternative to the Thatcher Society”. Foot reprinted a large excerpt from the article by Mailer which included the text above. Foot obliquely indicated that Mailer was not presenting a direct quotation:2
Norman Mailer is quite good at long sentences and short ones. He made no complaint about mine, I was glad to note. ‘The cogent point of view,’ he was considerate enough to attribute to me—the word cogent means, by the way, convincing, powerful—was thought by some to be a direct quotation from what I had said, and it was thereupon reprinted in the Daily Mirror and elsewhere. Norman Mailer modestly suggested that he might make a new career as a speech-writer. After the experience of the last election, I would prefer to see him founding a new school of journalism.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
On June 1, 1983, the “Daily Mirror” of London directly credited Foot with a slightly altered version of the words written by Mailer. This version employed the phrase “the top are greedy” instead of “the top is greedy”:3
Most of us have now switched to auto-pilot when listening to the repetitive boasts of the politicians. But I make no excuse for quoting a little reported but eloquent speech by Michael Foot last week. He said:
“We are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and more crippled than ourselves.
That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top are deprived of their initiative, I would answer “to hell with them.”
The top are greedy and mean and they will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.”
On June 3, 1983, the “New Statesman” of London noted that Norman Mailer was covering the campaign of Michael Foot in the “Mail on Sunday”. The magazine called Mailer an “American visitor”. It reprinted Mailer’s descriptive passage about Foot with the following introduction:4
But he also looked beyond the Labour leader’s suits, listened to him speak and reported what he perceived Foot to be saying. I was at the same meeting and it is, I think, worth repeating what this American visitor saw since you won’t read it from our own journalists.
‘Foot had a cogent point of view at least. It said we are not here in this world to find elegant solutions …
In June 1983 “Esquire” magazine published a piece by Norman Mailer titled “The Poor American in London”. Mailer reprinted the passage from the article he published in “The Mail on Sunday”.5
In 2001 “The Observer” of London published an article about Michael Foot titled “Best Foot goes ever forward”. The passage under examination was introduced with the following words:6
I have just come across Norman Mailer’s account of watching Foot in the 1983 election, when the American arch-conservative admitted being moved by the passion of these words of Foot’s: ‘We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions …
Michael Foot died in 2010. The obituary in “The New York Times” directly credited Foot with the words written by Mailer:7
In the 1983 general election, he campaigned on a Labour platform that included unilateral disarmament, higher taxes, a more interventionist industrial policy, nationalization of the banks and abolition of the House of Lords.
“We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress,” he declared in a campaign speech. “No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer, ‘To hell with them.’ The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.”
In conclusion, Norman Mailer covered the political campaign of Michael Foot in 1983. Mailer penned an eloquent passage designed to represent the viewpoint of Foot. QI believes that Mailer was not quoting Foot directly. Nevertheless, nowadays Foot often receives credit for the passage, and Mailer’s name is omitted.
Image Notes: Illustration of gold bullion from zlataky at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Bro. B!O!F! whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Also, great thanks to researcher Dave Wilton who accessed the important article in “The Mail on Sunday”.
- 1983 May 29, The Mail on Sunday, With Foot on the Edge of Peril by Norman Mailer, Quote Page 33, Column 9, London, England. (Gale Primary Sources: The Mail on Sunday) ↩︎
- 1984, Another Heart and Other Pulses: The Alternative to the Thatcher Society by Michael Foot, Chapter 3: The Nuclear Mountains, Quote Pahe 94 and 95, William Collins Sons & Company, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1983 June 1, Daily Mirror, Needy before greedy, Quote Page 9, Column 5 and 6, London, England. (British Newspaper Archive) ↩︎
- 1983 June 3, New Statesman, Election ’83: Leader writing, Mary Holland studies the press coverage of Michael Foot, Start Page 10, Quote Page 12, The Statesman & Nation Publishing Company, London. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1983 October, Esquire, Volume 100, Number 4, Documentary: The Poor American in London by Norman Mailer, Start Page 49, Quote Page 54, Column 1, Esquire Associates, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2001 March 4, The Observer, Best Foot goes ever forward by Euan Ferguson, Quote Page 20, Column 5, London, England. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 2010 March 4, New York Times (Online), Michael Foot Dies at 96; Led Britain’s Labour Party by William Grimes, Quote Page A24, Column 4, New York. (ProQuest) ↩︎