"The rise of European civilization is too vast a subject to give proper perspective in a few paragraphs. But all its main features, and all its details, illustrate one truth: Progress occurs to the extent that society tends toward closer association and greater equality. Civilization is cooperation. Union and liberty are its factors. "Modern civilization has gone so much higher than any before due to the great extension of association -- not just in larger and denser communities, but in the increase of commerce, and the numerous exchanges knitting each community together, and linking them with others far apart; and also in the growth of international and municipal law, advances in security of property and person, strides in individual liberty, and movement towards democratic government. In short, our civilization has gone farther in recognizing equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "The spirit of fatalism pervading current literature finds it fashionable to speak of war and slavery as means of human progress. But war is the opposite of association. It can aid progress only when it prevents further war, or breaks down antisocial barriers. "As for slavery, I cannot see how it could ever have aided progress. Freedom is the synonym of equality, the stimulus and condition of progress. Slavery never did, and never could, aid improvement. Slavery necessarily involves a waste of human power. This is true whether the community consists of a single master and a single slave, or thousands of masters and millions of slaves. Slave labor is less productive than free labor. Masters waste power holding and watching their slaves. From first to last, slavery has hampered and prevented progress -- as has every denial of equality." schalkenbach.org/library/henry-george/drake-p+p/pchp41.htm
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 02:07:15 +0000