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| Wealth and Want | |||||||
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Subtle Alchemy
Henry George: Ode to Liberty (1877 speech)
Our primary social adjustment is a denial of
justice. In allowing one man to own the land on which and
from which other men must live, we have made them his
bondsmen in a degree which increases as material progress
goes on. This is the subtle alchemy that
in ways they do not realize is extracting from the masses
in every civilized country the fruits of their weary
toil; that is instituting a harder and more
hopeless slavery in place of that which has been
destroyed; that is bringing political despotism out of
political freedom, and must soon transmute democratic
institutions into anarchy.
It is this that turns the blessings of material progress into a curse. It is this that crowds human beings into noisome cellars and squalid tenement houses; that fills prisons and brothels; that goads men with want and consumes them with greed; that robs women of the grace and beauty of perfect womanhood; that takes from little children the joy and innocence of life’s morning. Civilization so based cannot continue. The eternal laws of the universe forbid it. Ruins of dead empires testify, and the witness that is in every soul answers, that it cannot be. It is something grander than Benevolence, something more august than Charity — it is Justice herself that demands of us to right this wrong. Justice that will not be denied; that cannot be put off — Justice that with the scales carries the sword. Shall we ward the stroke with liturgies and prayers? Shall we avert the decrees of immutable law by raising churches when hungry infants moan and weary mothers weep? ... read the whole speechand also Significant Paragraphs from Henry George's Progress & Poverty: 14 Liberty, and Equality of Opportunity (in the unabridged P&P: Part X: The Law of Human Progress — Chapter 5: The Central Truth) |
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Wealth and Want
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... because democracy alone hasn't yet led to a society
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