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Blasphemy
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? Though
it may take the language of prayer, it is blasphemy that
attributes to the inscrutable decrees of Providence the suffering
and brutishness that come of poverty; that turns with folded hands to
the All-Father and lays on Him the responsibility for the want and
crime of our great cities. We degrade the Everlasting. We
slander the
Just One. A merciful man would have better ordered the world; a just
man would crush with his foot such an ulcerous ant-hill! It is not
the Almighty, but we who are responsible for the vice and misery that
fester amid our civilization. The Creator showers upon us his
gifts — more than enough for all. But like swine scrambling for
food, we tread them in the mire — tread them in the mire, while we
tear and rend each other!
In the very centers of our civilization today are want and suffering enough to make sick at heart whoever does not close his eyes and steel his nerves. Dare we turn to the Creator and ask Him to relieve it? Supposing the prayer were heard, and at the behest with which the universe sprang into being there should glow in the sun a greater power; new virtue fill the air; fresh vigor the soil; that for every blade of grass that now grows two should spring up, and the seed that now increases fifty-fold should increase a hundredfold! Would poverty be abated or want relieved? Manifestly no! Whatever benefit would accrue would be but temporary. The new powers streaming through the material universe could be utilized only through land. And land, being private property, the classes that now monopolize the bounty of the Creator would monopolize all the new bounty. Land owners would alone be benefited. Rents would increase, but wages would still tend to the starvation point! ... read the whole speech and 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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... because democracy
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