Use the printed Maxwell-filtered local drag law at fixed material arclength, after transients have decayed to a periodic response. Averaging the force equation over a period makes the time-derivative term vanish. Therefore the mean force equals the mean instantaneous resistive-force theory driving force, even though its oscillating part is filtered. In particular,
with the same sign convention as before.
At first order the tangent is and both velocity components are single harmonics of frequency . The linear Maxwell fluid response multiplies their complex force amplitudes by . Only its in-phase real part contributes to the mean work. Consequently
The leading power is strictly smaller when and , and equal in the Newtonian limit. The zero-frequency component generating the mean force is unattenuated, whereas elastic storage and phase lag reduce the dissipative harmonic response. This conclusion concerns the specified linear local force law and prescribed kinematics; it is not a claim for every nonlinear viscoelastic constitutive model.