"Looking Backward" is excellent. One thing is bad, namely, the Socialist, Marxian idea that if one does wrong for a very long time, good will ensue of its own accord. "Capital is accumulated in the hands of a few; it will end by being held by one. All trades-unions will be also united into one. There are capital and labor,—divided. Authority or revolution will unite them, and all will be well." The chief point is that nothing in our civilization will diminish, nothing recede; there will be the same mansions, the same gastronomic dinners, sweets, wines, carriages, horses,—only everything will be accessible to all.
It is incomprehensible that they do not see this to be impossible. Take for instance the luxuries of the house of
... (From: Wikisource.org.)
The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. "To establish Anarchy." "Anarchy will be instituted." But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power.
"The capitalistic organization will pass into the hands of workers, and then there will be no more oppression of these workers, and no unequal distribution of earnings."
"But who will establish th... (From: Wikisource.org.)
There are three means of alleviating the condition of the laborers and of setting up brotherhood among men.
1. Not to make people work for you; neither directly nor indirectly to demand work of them; not to need such articles
as demand extra labor,—all objects of luxury.
2. To do for oneself and, if possible, for others also that work which is tedious and unpleasant.
3. Not in reality a means, but the result and application of the second, to study the laws of nature and invent processes for the alleviation of labor—machinery, steam, electricity. One will invent what is really needed, and nothing superfluous, only when one invents in order to lighten one's own labor, or at least labor which one has oneself experienced... (From: Wikisource.org.)
I.
In reply to your letter I send you the enclosed with special pleasure. I have been acquainted with Henry George since the appearance of his Social Problems. I read them, and was struck by the correctness of his main idea, and by the unique clearness and power of his argument, which is unlike anything in scientific literature, and especially by the Christian spirit, which also stands alone in the literature of science, which pervades the book. After reading it I turned to his previous work, Progress and Poverty, and with a heightened appreciation of its author's activity. You ask my opinion of Henry George's work, and of his single tax system. My opinion is the following:—
Humanity advances continually towards the enlightenmen... (From: Wikisource.org.)
(From a Letter to a Friend)
It is quite true, as you say in your article, and H—— in his, that Christian life is quite impossible in the present unchristian organization of society. The contradiction between his surroundings and his convictions is very painful for a man who is sincere in his Christian faith, and therefore the organization of
communities seems to such a man the only means of delivering himself from these contradictions.
But this is an illusion. Every community is a small island in the midst of an ocean of unchristian conditions of life, so that the Christian relations exist only between the members of the colony; while outside they must remain unchristian, otherwise the colony could not exist for one mome... (From: Wikisource.org.)
