humansfirst.org Blog

“If I wanted to invent a most striking illustration of the way in which the demand for money has become in our days the chief instrument by which some men enslave others. I could not invent anything more glaring and convincing than this true story, which is based on documentary evidence and occurred the other day.
The Fijians live in Polynesia on islands in the Southern Pacific Ocean. The whole group, Professor Yanzhul tells us, consists of small islands covering about 8,000 square miles. Only half of them are inhabited, by a population of 150,000 natives and 1,500 whites. The native inhabitants, who emerged from savagery long ago, are distinguished among the natives of Polynesia by their ability, and are capable of work and of development, as they have proved by rapidly becoming good farmers and cattle-breeders. They were thriving, but in 1859 the kingdom found itself in a desperate position. The Fijians and their King Thakombau needed money. They needed $45,000 for contributions or indemnities demanded by the United States of America for violence said to have been inflicted by Fijians on some citizens of the American republic.
To collect this sum the Americans sent a squadron, which suddenly seized some of the best islands as security and even threatened to bombard and destroy the settlements unless the contribution was paid to the American representatives by a given date. The Americans had been among the first white men to settle in Fiji with missionaries. Selecting or seizing under one pretext or another the best plots of land on the islands and laying out cotton and coffee plantations they hired whole crowds of natives, whom they bound by contracts the savages did not understand, or obtained through contractors who dealt in live chattels. Conflicts between such planters and the natives, whom they regarded as slaves, were inevitable, and a conflict of that kind served as pretext for the American demand for compensation. Despite its prosperity Fiji till then had been in the habit of making payments in kind, as was customary in Europe till the Middle Ages. The natives did not use money, and their trade was entirely done by barter; goods were exchanged for goods, and the few public or government levies were collected in country produce. What were the Fijians and their King Thakombau to do when the Americans categorically demanded $45,000 under threat of dire consequences in case of non¬payment. For the Fijians the figure itself was incomprehensible, not to speak of the money, which they had never seen in such quantities. Thakombau consulted with the other chiefs, and decided to turn to the Queen of England. At first he asked her to take the islands under her protection, and later on asked her simply to annex them. But the English treated this petition cautiously and were in no hurry to rescue the semi-savage monarch from his difficulties. Instead of a direct reply they fitted out a special expedition, in 1860, to investigate the Fiji Islands, in order to decide whether it was worth spending money on satisfying the American creditors and annexing the islands to the British dominions.

Meanwhile the American government continued to insist on payment, took possession, as security, of some of the best positions, and having observed the prosperity of the people, raised its demand from $45,000 to $90,000, and threatened to raise it still further if Thakombau did not pay promptly. So, pressed on all sides, poor Thakombau, who was ignorant of European methods of arranging credit transactions, began, on the advice of European settlers, to seek money from Melbourne merchants on any terms, even if he had to yield his whole kingdom to private persons. And so in Melbourne, in response to Thakombau’s appeal, a trading Company was formed. This Company, which took the name of the Polynesian Company, concluded an agreement with the Fiji rulers on terms very favourable to itself. Undertaking to meet the debt to the American government and engaging to pay it by certain fixed dates, the Company under its first agreement obtained 100,000, and later 200,000 acres, of the best land at its own selection, with freedom for all time from all taxes and duties for its factories, operations, and colonies, and for a pro¬longed period the exclusive right to establish banks in Fiji with the privilege of unlimited issue of bank-notes. Since the signing of that contract, finally concluded in 1868, the Fijians were confronted, side by side with their own government under Thakombau, by another power – the influential trading Company with great landed possessions on all the islands and a decisive influence in the government. Till then Thakombau’s government for the satisfaction of its needs had contented itself with what it obtained by various tributes in kind and by a small customs duty on imported goods. With the conclusion of this agreement, and the establishment of the powerful Polynesian Company, its financial position changed. An important part of the best land in its dominions passed over to the Company and so the taxes diminished; on the other hand, as we know, the Company had a right to the free import and export of goods, as a result of which revenue from the customs was also reduced. The natives, that is to say 99 per cent. of the population, had always been but poor contributors to the customs revenue, for they hardly used any European goods except a little cotton stuff and some metal ware; and now, when through the Polynesian Company the wealthier European inhabitants escaped the payment of customs dues, King Thakombau’s revenue became quite insignificant and he had to bestir himself to increase it. And so Thakombau consulted his white friends as to how to escape from his difficulties, and they advised him to introduce for the first time in the country direct taxation, and, no doubt to facilitate matters for him, it was to be in the form of a money-tax. The levy was instituted in the form of a general poll-tax of £1 on each male and four shillings on each woman in the islands.
Even to the present day in the Fiji Islands, as we have already mentioned, the cultivation of the soil and direct barter prevails. Very few natives have any money. Their wealth consists entirely of various raw produce and of cattle, but not of money. Yet the new tax demanded, at fixed dates and at all costs, a sum of money which for a native with a family came to a very considerable total. Till then a native had not been accustomed to pay any personal dues to the government except in the form of labour, while the taxes had all been paid by the villages or communes to which he belonged, from the common fields out of which he, too, drew his chief income. He had only one way out of the difficulty: to obtain money from the white colonists that is, to go either to a trader or a planter who had what he needed-money. To the first he had to sell his produce at any price, since the tax-collector demanded it by a given date, or he was even obliged to borrow money against future produce, a circumstance of which the trader naturally took
advantage to secure an unscrupulous profit; or else he had to turn to a planter and sell him his labour, that is to become a labourer. But it turned out that wages on the Fiji Islands, in consequence probably of much labour being offered simultaneously, were very low, not exceeding, according to the report of the present administration, a shilling a week for an adult male, or £2.12s. a year; and consequently merely to obtain the money to pay his own tax, not to mention his family’s, a Fijian had to abandon his home, his family, his own land and cultivation, and often to move far off to another island and bind himself to a planter for half a year, in order to earn the £1 needed for the payment of the new tax; while for the payment of the tax for a whole family he had to seek other means. The result of such an arrangement can easily be imagined. From his 150,000 subjects Thakombau only collected £6,000; and then an intensive demand, previously unknown, began for taxes, and a series of compulsory measures. The local administration, previously honest, soon came to an understanding with the white planters who had begun to manage the country. The Fijians were taken to court for non-payment and sentenced, besides the payment of costs, to imprisonment for not less than half a year. The role of prison was played by the plantation of the first white man willing to pay the tax and legal costs for the prisoner. In this way the whites obtained cheap labour to any desired extent. At first this handing over to compulsory labour was permitted for a period of six months only, but later on the venal judges found it possible to sentence men even to eighteen months’ labour and then to renew the sentence. Very soon, in a few years, the picture of the economic condition of the inhabitants. of Fiji had completely changed. Whole flourishing districts had become half-depopulated and were extremely impoverished. The whole male population, except the old and the feeble, were working away from home for the white planters to obtain money needed for the payment of the tax, or to satisfy sentences of the court. Women in Fiji do hardly any agricultural labour, and so, m the absence of the men, the land was neglected or totally abandoned. In a few years half the population of Fiji had become slaves to, the white colonists. To improve their condition the Fijians again turned to England. A new petition appeared, to which were appended the names of many of the most notable persons and chiefs, begging to be made British subjects, and it was presented to the British consul. By this time England, thanks to its scientific expeditions, had not only studied but had even surveyed the islands and was well aware of the natural wealth of that beautiful corner of the globe. For these reasons the negotiations this time were crowned with full success, and in 1874, to the great dissatisfaction of the American planters, England officially entered into possession of the Fiji Islands, adding them to its colonies.
Thakombau died and a small pension was assigned to his heirs. The government of the islands was entrusted to Sir Hercules Robinson (Lord Rosmead), the Governor of New South Wales. During the first year of its annexation to England Fiji was without a government of its own, but Sir Hercules Robinson appointed an administrator. On taking the islands in hand the English government had a hard task to solve in fulfilling all that was expected of it. In the first place, the natives expected the abolition of the hateful poll- tax; the white colonists (who were partly American) either regarded the British rule distrustfully or (the British section) expected from it all kinds of benefits, for instance, the recognition of their dominion over the natives and the legalization of their claims to land they had seized, and so forth. The English government, however, proved competent to deal with the problem, and its first act was to abolish for ever the poll-tax which

occasioned the enslavement of the natives for the profit of a few colonists. But here Sir Hercules Robinson was confronted by a serious dilemma. It was necessary to annul the poll-tax to escape from which the Fijians had appealed to the British government, but at the same time, by the rules of English colonial policy, the colony had to pay its own way, that is to say, had to find means to meet the expenses of its administration. Yet with the abolition of the poll-tax the whole income of Fiji (from the customs dues) did not exceed £6,000, whereas the expenses of the administration demanded at least £70,000 a year. So Robinson, having abolished the money tax, devised a labour tax, that is, imposed obligatory labour on the Fijians, but this did not bring in the £70,000 required for his Own and his assistants’ maintenance. And matters did not progress till the appointment of a new Governor, Sir A. M. Gordon (Baron Stanmore), who, to obtain from the inhabitants the money needed for his own and his assistants’ support, devised the plan of not demanding money until there should be enough of it in circulation on the islands, but of collecting produce from the natives and selling it himself.
This tragic episode in the life of the Fijians is the clearest and best indication of what money is and of its significance. Here all is expressed: the first basis of slavery – cannon, threats, murder, the seizure of land, and also the chief instrument – money, which replaces all other means. What has to be followed through the course of centuries in an historic sketch of the economic development of nations, is here, when the various forms of monetary coercion have been fully developed, concentrated into a single decade. The drama begins with the American government sending ships with loaded cannon to the shores of the land, whore inhabitants it wishes to enslave.
The pretext for the threat is monetary, but the drama begins with cannon directed against all the inhabitants: women, children, the aged, and the innocent: an occurrence now being repeated in Africa, China, and Central Asia. That was the beginning of the drama: ‘Your money or your life,’ repeated in the history of all the conquests of all the nations; $45,000 and then $90,000, or a massacre. But there were no $90,000 available. The Americans had them. And then the second act of the drama begins: brief, bloody, terrible and concentrated slaughter has to be postponed, and changed for less noticeable, but more prolonged sufferings. And the tribe with its ruler seeks means to substitute monetary enslavement – slavery, for the massacre. It borrows money, and then the monetary forms of the enslavement of men are organized.
These forms at once begin to act like a disciplined army and within five years the whole work is done: the people are not only deprived of the right to use the land, and of their property, but also of their liberty; they are slaves.
The third act begins: the situation is too hard and the unfortunate people hear rumours that it is possible to exchange masters and go into slavery to someone else. (Of emancipation from the slavery imposed by money there is no longer any thought.) And the tribe calls in another master, to whom it submits with a request to mitigate its condition. The English come, see that the possession of these islands will make it possible for them to feed the drones of whom they have bred too many, and the English government annexes these islands with their inhabitants, but does not take them as chattel slaves and does not even take the land and distribute it to its own supporters. Those old

methods are now unnecessary. All that is necessary is that a tribute should be exacted; one large enough on the one hand to keep the slaves in slavery, and sufficient on the other to feed a multitude of drones.
The inhabitants had to pay £70,000 sterling. That is the fundamental condition on which England agreed to rescue the Fijians from their American slavery, and at the same time this was all that was necessary for the complete enslavement of the natives. But it turned out that under the conditions they were in the Fijians could not possibly pay £70,000. The demand was too great. The English modify the demand for a time, and take part of the claim in produce, in order, in due course, when money should be in circulation, to raise their exaction to its full amount. England did not act like the former Company, whose procedure may be compared to the first arrival of savage conquerors among a savage people, when all they want is to seize what they can get and to go away again, but England acts as a far-seeing enslaver: it does not at once kill the hen that lays the golden egg, but will even feed it, knowing the hen to be a good layer. At first she slackens the reins for her own advantage, in order later to pull them in and reduce the Fijians to the state of monetary enslavement in which the European and civilized world finds itself, and from which no emancipation is in sight.
Money is a harmless medium of exchange, only not when at the shores of a country loaded cannon are directed against its inhabitants. As soon as money is forcibly exacted at the cannon’s mouth, then inevitably that is repeated which occurred on the Fiji Islands and has been repeated, and is repeated, everywhere and always: in the case of the old Princes of Russia and the Drevlyans, and with all governments and their subjects. People who have the power to coerce others will do it by the forcible demand of such a quantity of money as will oblige the coerced to become the slaves of the coercers. And besides this, what happened in the case of the English and the Fijians always happens, namely that the coercers, in order to hasten the enslavement, will in their demands for money always exceed rather than understate the limit of what is needed for the purpose. They will reach that limit without exceeding it only if a moral feeling is present, and even if that feeling does exist, they will always reach it when they are themselves in want. But governments will always exceed that limit, first because a government has no moral feelings, and secondly because, as we know, governments are themselves in extreme want, due to wars and to the need of paying their supporters. Governments are always irredeemably in debt and, even if they wished to, could not help following the rule expressed by a Russian statesman of the eighteenth century, that ‘one must shear the peasant and not let him get overgrown’. All governments are irredeemably in debt, and this debt in its totality (apart from fortuitous diminutions in England and America) increases from year to year in a terrifying progression. Similarly do the budgets grow, that is the necessity of struggling with other aggressors and making payments of money and land to those who aid its own aggressions, and therefore the charges on land grown the same way. Wages do not grow – not on account of the law of rent, but because there is an exaction by violence, of payments to the state and for the land, which has the purpose of taking from people all their surplus so that to satisfy this demand they must sell their labour: for the exploitation of that labour is the object of the imposition. of the taxes. But the exploitation of that labour is only possible when, in the aggregate, more is demanded than the workers can pay without depriving themselves of nourishment. Raising the scale of wages would destroy the possibility of this slavery, and therefore, while there is
violence, it never can be raised. And this simple and intelligible action of one set of men on another, economists have called the ‘iron law’ while the instrument by means of which this action is produced they call a ‘medium of exchange’.
Money – this harmless medium of exchange is needed by men in their mutual intercourse. But why has there never been, or could there be, money in its present-day significance where no forcible demand for money-taxes exists? And why has there always been, and always will be as there is among the Fijians, the Kirgiz, the Africans, the Phoenicians, and in general among people who do not pay taxes – either the direct exchange of things for things, or else the use of casual tokens of value, such as sheep, furs, skins, or shells? Any particular kind of money; only obtains currency among people when it is forcibly demanded of them all. Only then does it become necessary to everyone that he may ransom himself from violence, and only then does it obtain a constant exchange value. And what then acquires value is not what is most convenient as a medium of exchange but what the government demands. If gold is demanded, gold will have value; if knuckle¬bones were demanded, knuckle-bones would have value. If this were not so, why has the emission of this medium of exchange always formed, and why does it form, a prerogative of government? People – let us say the Fijians – have established a medium of exchange; well then let them exchange as they please, and you who have power – that is who have means to inflict violence – should not interfere with that exchange. But as it is, you coin money, forbidding anyone else to coin it, or else (as among us in Russia) you merely print bits of paper with the Tsar’s head on them and sign them with a particular signature, exacting penalties for any imitation of this money, and you distribute it to your assistants, and in payment of state and land taxes demand just these coins or these bits of paper with just that signature, and so much of it that a workman has to give his whole labour to obtain these same bits of paper, or coins, and you assure us that we need this money – as a ‘medium of exchange’. Men are all free and they do not oppress one another, do not, hold one another in slavery, only there is this money in use and an iron law according to which rent rises and wages dwindle to a minimum! The fact that half (and more than half) the Russian peasants are enslaved as labourers to landowners and to mill-owners, on account of direct and indirect taxes and land dues, does not at all mean, what is obvious, that the compulsory exaction of direct indirect, and land taxes paid in money to the government and to its assistants – the land-owners – compels workmen to go into slavery to those who take the money, but it means that money exists – a medium of exchange – and that there is an iron law! […]”

“For the first method of enslavement the man in power needs only warriors constantly riding about among the people and, by threats of death, seeing that his orders are obeyed. For the first method the oppressor need only divide up with his warriors. But under the second method, besides warriors, the oppressor needs another kind of assistants to preserve the stores of grain and the land from the hungry people-he needs great and little Josephs, managers and distributors of the grain. And the strong man has to divide up with them, and to give Joseph a vesture of fine linen, a gold ring, and servants, and grain, and silver for his brethren and his relatives. Besides. by the nature of the case, under the second method not only the managers and their relatives but all those who have stores of grain become sharers in the advantage of the violence used. As under the first method founded on sheer force, everyone who had arms became a participant in the violence employed, so under the second method based on hunger, all who have supplies share in the benefits of the oppression and lord it over those who have none.
For the oppressor the advantage of this method over the former is that, first and chiefly, he is no longer obliged to coerce the workers by force to do his will, but they come themselves and sell themselves to him; secondly, a smaller number escape his coercion. The only disadvantage of this method for the oppressor is that it obliges him to share with a larger number of people. The advantage of this method for the oppressed is that they are no longer subject to coarse violence, but are left to themselves and can always hope under fortunate conditions to pass over from the ranks of the oppressed to the ranks of the oppressors; the disadvantage for them is that they can never more escape from some measure of coercion. This new method of enslavement generally comes into use together with the old method, and the strong man reduces the one and extends the other as may be required. But this method of enslavement still does not fully satisfy the strong man’s desire-to take as much as possible of the produce of their labour from the greatest number of workers and to enslave as great a number of people as possible – and does not keep pace with the increasing complexity of life’s conditions, and a still newer method of enslavement is devised. The new, and third, method is that of tribute. This method like the second is based on hunger, but to the method of enslaving people by depriving them of bread is added that of depriving them also of other necessaries. The oppressor demands from the slaves such a quantity of monetary tokens, which he himself possesses, that to obtain them the slaves are obliged to sell not only more than the fifth of their store of grain that Joseph fixed, but also articles of prime necessity: meat, skins, wool, clothes, fuel, even buildings, and thus the oppressor always holds the slaves in subjection not only by hunger, but also by thirst, want, cold, and all other kinds of privation.
And a third form of slavery is organized – the monetary, which consists in the strong man saying to the weak one: I can do what I like with each of you separately, I can simply take a gun and shoot each of you, or I can kill you by taking the land that feeds you; I can, with the money you have to bring me, buy up all the grain that feeds you, and I can sell it to other people and starve you all at any moment, and I can take from you all that you have: cattle, dwellings, and clothes; but that is inconvenient and unpleasant for me, and therefore I allow you all to arrange your own work and your own production as you please – only bring me so many pieces of money, the demand for which I will assess either per head or according to the land you hold, or by the quantity of food and drink you have, or by your clothes, or your buildings. Bring me these money tokens and arrange matters among yourselves as you please, but know that I shall defend and protect

not widows, nor orphans, nor the sick, nor the old, nor those who have suffered from fires, but only the regularity of circulation of these money tokens. That man only will be justified before me and protected by me who regularly brings me the required number of money tokens I demand. But how he gets them is a matter of indifference to me.
And the strong man only issues these tokens as receipts for the fulfilment of his demands.
The second method of enslavement is that by taking a fifth part of the crops and laying up stores of grain, Pharaoh, besides personal enslavement by the sword, obtains in common with his assistants the possibility of ruling all the workers in times of famine and some of them whenever calamity befalls them.
The third method is, that Pharaoh demands of the workers more than would pay for the fifth of the crops which he formerly took from them, and with his assistants obtains a new means of ruling over the workmen not only in time off amine and casual misfortune but at all times. Under the second method the people kept some supplies of grain, which enabled them without surrendering themselves to slavery to bear small failures of harvest and casual mishaps, but under the third method, when the exactions are greater, their supplies of grain and all other supplies of prime necessities are taken from them and at the slightest mishap the worker, having no reserves of grain or other supplies which he could exchange for grain, has to go into slavery to those who have money. For the first method the oppressor need only have soldiers and need only divide with them; for the second, besides guards over the land and the stores of grain, he also requires collectors and clerks to distribute the grain; under the third method he can no longer himself own all the land, but besides warriors to guard the land and the wealth, he must also have landowners and tax-collectors, officials to allot the taxes and assess them per head or according to the articles used; inspectors, customs-officers, revenue officers and assessors. The organization of the third method is much more complex than that of the second; under the second method the collection of the grain can be farmed out as was done in ancient times and is still done in Turkey; but when the enslaved are taxed, a complex administration is needed to watch that the people or their taxable actions should not escape the tribute. And so under the third method, the oppressor has to share with a still greater number of people than under the second method; besides which, by the very nature of the case, all people either of that same or of other countries who have money become participants. The advantages for the oppressor of this method over the first or second methods are the following:
In the first place, by means of this method a greater amount of labour can be taken and taken in a more convenient manner, for a money tax is like a screw, it can be easily and conveniently turned to the utmost limit which does not kill the golden hen; so that it is not necessary to await a famine year as in Joseph’s time-for the famine year can always be arranged.
Secondly, because under this method the coercion is extended to all those landless people who formerly escaped and gave only part of their labour for bread, but who are now obliged in addition to that part to give also part of their labour for taxes to the oppressor. The disadvantage for the oppressor is that under this method he has to share with a greater number of people: not only his immediate assistants but, first, with all those private landowners who usually appear where this system is adopted, and secondly, with

all those people of his own or even of other nations who have such money tokens as are demanded from the slaves.
The advantage for the oppressed in comparison with the second method is only this, that he has still more personal independence from the oppressor; he can live where he pleases, do what he pleases, and sow or not sow grain; he is not obliged to account for his work, and if he has money he can consider himself quite free, and he can always hope, or actually attain if but for a time – when he has money to spare or has land bought for it – not merely a position of independence but even that of an oppressor. The disadvantage for him is that, under this third method, the position of the oppressed in general becomes far harder and they are deprived of the greater part of what they produce, since under this third method the number of people who live on the labour of others is still greater and therefore the burden of supporting them falls on a smaller number. This third method of enslavement is also a very old one, and comes into use together with the two previous ones without entirely excluding them. None of the three methods of enslavement has ever ceased to exist. All three methods may be compared to screws which press down a board that lies on the workers and squeezes them. The chief, fundamental, and central screw, without which the others cannot hold – the one which is first screwed down and never ceases to act – is that of personal slavery, the enslavement of one set of people by another by means of threats to kill them with the sword; the second – which is screwed down after the former – is the enslavement of people by depriving them of land and of stores of food, a deprivation supported by the personal threat of death; and the third screw is the enslavement of people by a demand for money tokens they have not got, and that too is supported by the threat of murder. All three screws are operated, and only when one is tightened are the others relaxed. For the complete enslavement of the workers all three screws – all three methods of enslavement – are needed, and in our society all three methods are constantly in use – all three screws are tightened.
The first method, enslaving men by personal violence and by threats to kill them by the sword, has never been abandoned, and will not be abandoned as long as there is any enslavement of man by man, because all enslavement depends upon it. We are all very naively confident that personally slavery has been abandoned in our civilized world, that the last remnants of it were abolished in America and Russia, and that now only among savages is there slavery, but that we have none. We forget only one small circumstance namely about those millions of men who in standing armies without which no single government exists and with the abolition of which the whole economic structure of every government would inevitably go to pieces. But what are those millions of soldiers if not the personal slaves of those who rule over them? Are not they compelled to do the will of their owners under threat of torture and death – a threat frequently put into execution? The only difference is that the subjection of these slaves is not called slavery but discipline, and that while the others were slaves from birth to death these are so for the period, more or less brief of what is termed their ‘service’. Personal slavery is not only not abolished in our civilized societies but with the introduction of universal military conscription it has of late been strengthened and still remains what it has always been though somewhat modified. And it cannot fail to exist, for as long as there is any enslavement of man by man there will be this personal slavery which by threat of the sword maintains the territorial and tax enslavement of men. It may that this slavery that of the army, may be very necessary, as is alleged, for the defence and glory of our
fatherland, though this advantage is more than doubtful, for we see that in unsuccessful wars it often serves for the enslavement and degradation of the country; but what is evident is the suitability of this slavery for the maintenance of land and tax slavery. If the Irish or the Russian peasants seized. the land from the estate-owners, the troops would come and take it back again. Build distilleries or breweries and fail to pay the excise dues, and soldiers come and close the establishment. Refuse to pay taxes and the same will happen.
The second screw is the method of enslavement by depriving people of land and therefore of their food supplies. This method of enslavement also has existed and does exist wherever people are enslaved, and however much its form may be altered it exists everywhere. Sometimes the land all belongs to the sovereign, as in Turkey, and a tithe of the harvest is taken for the treasury; sometimes only part of the land, and a tax is collected from it; sometimes again the land all belongs to a small number of people and part of the labour is taken for it, as in England; or a larger or smaller part of it belongs to great landowners, as in Russia, Germany, and France. But where there is enslavement there is also appropriation of land by means of enslavement. This screw for the enslavement of people is slackened or tightened in proportion to the strain on the other screws’ thus, in Russia when personal enslavement extended to the majority of workmen, land slavery was superfluous; but the screw of personal slavery in Russia was only relaxed when the screws of land and tax enslavement were tightened. The people were all inscribed in communes, their migration or change of location was made difficult, the land was appropriated or given to private owners, and then the peasants were set ‘free’. In England, for instance, the land enslavement is what chiefly acts, and the question of the nationalization of the land merely consists in tightening the tax screw in order to relax the screw of territorial enslavement.
The third method of enslavement – by tribute or taxation-also existed before, and in our time, with the diffusion of uniform money tokens in various states and the intensification of governmental power, it has acquired special force. This method has been so elaborated in our time that it bids fair to replace the second – the territorial – method of enslavement. It is the screw with the tightening of which the land-screw relaxes, as is evident in the economic condition of all Europe. Within our own memory, we have lived through two transitions of slavery from one form to another in Russia: when we freed the serfs and left the proprietors in possession of most of the land, the proprietors feared that their power over the slaves would slip away; but experience showed that when letting go of the old chain of personal slavery they only had to seize the other, that of land-ownership. The peasant lacked bread to eat and the proprietor had the land and the stores of grain, and therefore the peasant remained a slave as before. The next transition was when government demands greatly tightened the other screw-that of taxation, and most of the labourers were obliged to sell themselves into bondage to the estate-owners or to the factories. And the new form of slavery held the people yet more thoroughly, so that nine- tenths of the Russian working classes work for proprietors and factory owners only because they are compelled to do so by the demands for State and land taxes. This is so obvious that were the government to try the experiment of not collecting direct, indirect, and land taxes for a year, all the work on other people’s land and at the factories would come to a standstill. Nine-tenths of the Russian people hire themselves out when the taxes are being collected, and on account of those taxes.

All three methods of enslavement have existed continuously and still exist; but people are inclined not to notice them as soon as new justifications are alleged for them. And what is strange is that this very method on which at the present time everything is based, the screw holding everything together, is just what is not noticed.
When in the ancient world the whole economic structure was based on personal slavery, the greatest intellects did not notice it. To Xenophon and Plato and Aristotle and to the Romans it seemed that things could not be otherwise, and that slavery was an inevitable and natural outcome of wars, without which the existence of humanity was unthinkable. So also in the Middle Ages, and even down to recent times, people I did not see the significance of land-ownership and the slavery resulting from it, on which the whole economic structure of the Middle Ages rested. And just in the same way now, no one sees or even wishes to see that in our time the enslavement of the majority of people depends on money-taxes – State and land taxes – demanded by the governments and their dependants and collected by the administration and the army – the very administration and army that are paid for out of those taxes. […]

“It is possible to compel a man to be a slave and to do. what he considers bad for himself, but it is impossible to make him think that while suffering violence he is free and that the evident evil he endures forms his welfare. That seems impossible, but is just what has been done in our time by the aid of science.
The government, that is armed men using force, decide what they must take from those whom they coerce: like the English in dealing with the Fijians, they decide how much labour require of their slaves, beside how many assistants they need to collect this labour, organize their assistants as soldiers, as landed proprietors, and as tax collectors and the

slaves yield their labour and at the same time believe that they give it up not because their masters wish it, but because, for their own freedom and welfare, service and bloody sacrifice offered to a divinity called ‘the State’ are essential, and that while paying this service to this divinity they remain free. They believe this because formerly religion and the priests said so, and now science and the learned people talk that way. But we need only cease to believe blindly what others, calling themselves priests and learned men, for the absurdity of such assertions to become evident. People who do violence to others assure them that this violence is necessary for the State and that the State is necessary for the freedom and welfare of the people: it turns out that the oppressors oppress the people to promote their freedom, and harm them for their good. But men are rational beings that they may understand wherein their welfare lies and may promote it freely. And affairs the goodness of which is unintelligible to people and to which they are driven by force, cannot be good for them, for a rational being can regard as good only what presents itself to his reason as being so. If from passion or lack of sense men are drawn towards evil, all that others who do not commit the same errors can do is to persuade them to do what ac¬cords with their real welfare. People may be persuaded that their welfare will be greater if they all become soldiers, are all deprived of land, and give their whole labour for taxes; but until all men regard this as their welfare and therefore do it voluntarily, it cannot be called the general good of man. The sole sign of the goodness of an undertaking is that people do it of their own free will, and man’s life is full of such affairs.
Ten workmen provide themselves with cooper’s tools in order to work together, and doing this they do what is certainly for their common welfare; but it is not possible to suppose that these workmen if they compel by violence an eleventh man to participate in their association, could affirm that what was their common good would also be good for this eleventh man.
So also with gentlemen who give a dinner to a friend of theirs; it is impossible to assert that this dinner will be good for someone from whom they take ten rubles by force for it. So also with peasants who decide to dig a pond for their convenience. For those who consider the existence of the pond a benefit worth more than the cost of labour expended upon it, the making of it will be a common good, but for him who considers the existence of this pond as less important than the harvesting of a field with which he is behind-hand, the digging of this pond cannot be considered a good. So also of roads people make, and of churches, and museums, and a great variety of social and political affairs. All these things can be a good only for those who regard them as such and engage on them freely and willingly, as in the case of the purchase of the cooper’s tools for the association, the dinner given by the gentlemen, or the pond dug by the peasants. But undertakings to which people have to be forcibly driven cease to be a common good just on account of that violence.
This is all so clear and simple that if people had not so long been deceived it would not be necessary to explain anything. We live, let us suppose, in a village, and we, all the villagers, have decided to build a bridge across a bog into which we sink. We have agreed or promised to give so much money, or timber, or so many days’ work from each household. We have agreed to do this because this bridge will be worth more to us than its building will cost. But among us there are some for whom it is better not to have the bridge than to spend money on it, or who at least think that this is so.

Can coercing these people to take part in building the bridge make it a benefit to them? Evidently not, for those who considered free participation in the building of the bridge disadvantageous will consider it yet more disadvantageous when it is compulsory. Let us even suppose that we all without exception agreed to build this bridge and promised to contribute so much money or labour from each household for the work, but it so happens that some of those who promised to contribute have not done so because their circumstances changed, causing them to think it better to be without a bridge than to spend money on it; or simply they have changed their minds; or even reckon on others building the bridge without their contribution and on still being able to use it. Can the compelling of these people to take part in building the bridge make their compulsory sacrifice a benefit to them? Evidently not, for if they did not fulfill their promise owing to altered circumstances which made it harder for them to contribute to the bridge than to do without a bridge, obligatory contributions will be only a greater evil to them. And if the ref users aimed at taking advantage of the labour of others, still, compelling them to make sacrifices will merely be a punishment for their intention, and a quite unproven intention punished before it had been carried into effect; but in neither case will compulsion to participate in an undesired affair be an advantage to them.
So it is when sacrifices are undertaken for an affair intelligible to everyone and of evident and undoubted utility, such as a bridge across a bog all have to cross. How much more unjust and senseless will it be to compel millions of people to make sacrifices for an aim that is unintelligible, intangible, and often indubitably harmful, as is the case with military service and the payment of taxes. But according to science what appears to everyone an evil is a common good; it seems that there are people, a tiny minority, who alone know wherein the common good lies, and, though all the rest of the people consider this common good to be an evil, this minority, while compelling all the rest to do this evil, can consider this evil to be a common good. . . .
Therein lies the chief superstition and chief deception hindering the progress of humanity towards truth and welfare. The maintenance of this superstition and this deception is the aim of political sciences in general and of what. is called political economy m particular Its aim is to hide from people the condition of oppression and slavery in which they are. The means it employs for this purpose are, when dealing with the violence that conditions the whole economic life of the enslaved, purposely to treat this violence as natural and inevitable, and thus to deceive people and divert their eyes from the real cause of their misery.
Slavery has long been abolished. It was abolished in Rome, and in America, and in Russia, but what was abolished was the word and not the thing itself.
Slavery consists in some men freeing themselves from labour (needed for the satisfaction of their wants) which is compulsorily put upon others; and where there is a man not working, not because others work for him lovingly but because instead of working himself he is able to compel others to work for him-there slavery exists. And where, as in all European countries, there are people utilizing the labour of thousands of others by means of violence and believing that they have a right to do so – while others submit to this coercion and regard it as their duty to do so – there slavery of terrible dimensions exists.

Slavery exists. In what does it consist? In that in which it has always consisted and with¬out which it can never exist – the violence of the strong and armed towards the weak and unarmed.
Slavery in its three fundamental methods of personal violence – military service; land tribute enforced by soldiery; and tribute imposed on inhabitants in the form of direct and indirect taxes and maintained by that same soldiery exists just as it used to. We do not see it only because each of the three forms of slavery has received a new justification, hiding its meaning from us.
The personal violence of the armed towards the unarmed has been justified as the defence of the fatherland against its imaginary foes; in reality it has its old meaning, namely the subjection of the vanquished by oppressors. The violence exerted in depriving the workers of the land they work has received justification as a reward for services supposed to have been rendered to the common good, and it is confirmed by the right of inheritance; in reality it is the same deprivation of land and enslavement of the people, effected by the army (the authorities).
The last, the monetary coercion of taxation the strongest and now the chief method – has received the most amazing justification, namely that people are deprived of their property and freedom and of their whole good for the sake of freedom and general welfare. In reality it is nothing but the same slavery, except that it is impersonal.
Where violence is legalized, there slavery exists. Whether the violence is expressed by incursions made by princes and their retainers, killing women and children and burning the villages; or by slave-owners taking work or money from their slaves for land and in case of non-payment calling in armed forces; or by some people laying tribute on others and riding armed through the villages; or by the Ministry of the Interior collecting money through Provincial Governors and the rural police, and in case of refusals to pay sending in the military – in a word, so long as there is violence supported by bayonets, there will not be a distribution of wealth among the people, but all wealth will go to the oppressors.
A striking illustration of the truth of this conclusion is supplied by Henry George’s project for nationalizing the land.1 George proposes to recognize all land as belonging to the State, and therefore to replace all taxes, both direct and indirect, by a ground rent. That is to say, every one making use of land should pay to the State the rental-value of such land.
What would result? Agricultural slavery would be abolished within the bounds of the State, that is, the land would belong to the State: England would have its own, America its own, and the slave-dues a man had to pay would be determined by the amount of land he used.
Perhaps the position of some of the workers (agrarian) would be improved, but as long as the forcible collection of a rent tax remained there would be slavery. An agriculturalist unable after a failure of crops to pay the rent forcibly demanded of him, to retain his land and not lose everything would have to go into bondage to a man who had money.”

Tolstoy, “What Then Must We Do?”

“For our country did not give us life and nurture unconditionally, without expecting to receive in return, as it were, some maintenance from us; nor did it engage simply to serve our convenience, providing safe haven for our leisure and a quiet place for our relaxation.  No, it reserved the right to appropriate for its own purpose the largest and most numerous portions of our loyalty, ability, and sagacity, leaving for our private use only what might be surplus to its needs.”

Cicero, “The Republic”

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

Distinguishing between constructive and destructive emotions is right there to be observed in the moment when a destructive emotion arises–the calmness, the tranquillity, the balance of the mind are immediately disrupted. Other emotions do not destroy equilibrium or the sense of well-being as soon as they arise, but in fact enhance it–so they would be called constructive.

Also there are emotions that are aroused by intelligence. For example, compassion can be aroused by pondering people who are suffering. When the compassion is actually experienced, it is true that the mind is somewhat disturbed, but that is more on the surface. Deep down there is a sense of confidence, and so on a deeper level there is no disturbance. A consequence of such compassion, aroused by intelligent reflection, is that the mind becomes calm.

The consequences of anger–especially its long-term effects–are that the mind is disturbed. Typically, when compassion moves from simply being a mental state to behavior, it tends to manifest in ways that are of service to others, whereas when anger goes to the point of enactment it generally, of course, becomes destructive. Even if it doesn’t manifest as violence, if you have the capacity to help, you would refrain from helping. That too would be a kind of destructive emotion. (p.158)

–from Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama narrated by Daniel Goleman, foreword by the Dalai Lama

http://www.snowlionpub.com/search.php?isbn=DEEMP