Part 63 (1/2)
”Well, tell me about it meantime and save me the trouble. I sometimes prefer my friends to their books.”
”You were always lazy,” he said smiling. But he began to talk, laying down his philosophy of life, which was simple enough, though I could not follow him very far. I had been trained in too strict a school to accept doctrines so radical. And but that I saw him and John Marvel and Eleanor Leigh acting on them I should have esteemed them absolutely utopian. As it was, I wondered how far Eleanor Leigh had inspired his book.
x.x.xVIII
WOLFFERT'S PHILOSOPHY
(WHICH MAY BE SKIPPED BY THE READER)
As Wolffert warmed up to his theme, his face brightened and his deep eyes glowed.
”The trouble with our people--our country--the world--is that our whole system--social--commercial--political--every activity is based on greed, mere, sheer greed. State and Church act on it--live by it. The success of the Jew which has brought on him so much suffering through the ages has revenged itself by stamping on your life the very evil with which you charge him--love of money. What ideals have we? None but money. We call it wealth. We have debased the name, and its debas.e.m.e.nt shows the debas.e.m.e.nt of the race. Once it meant weal, now mere riches, though employed basely, the very enemy and a.s.sa.s.sin of weal. The covetousness, whose reprobation in the last of the commandments was intended as a compendium to embrace the whole, has honeycombed our whole life, public and private. The ama.s.sing of riches, not for use only, for display--vulgar beyond belief--the squandering of riches, not for good, but for evil, to gratify jaded appet.i.tes which never at their freshest craved anything but evil or folly, marks the lowest level of the shopkeeping intellect. The Argands and the Canters are the aristocrats of the community, and the Capons are the fit priests for such people.”
He turned away in disgust--but I prodded him.
”What is your remedy? You criticise fiercely! but give no light. You are simply destructive.”
”The remedy is more difficult to give,” he said gravely; ”because the evil has been going on so long that it has become deep-rooted. It has sunk its roots into, not only the core of our life, but our character.
It will take long to eradicate it. But one economic evil might be, and eventually must be changed, unless we wish to go down into the abyss of universal corruption and destruction.”
”You mean----?”
”Capitalism--the idea that because a man is accidentally able to acquire through advent.i.tious and often corrupt means vast riches which really are not made by himself, but by means of others under conditions and laws which he did not create, he may call them his own; use them in ways manifestly detrimental to the public good and, indeed, often in notorious destructiveness of it, and be protected in doing so by those laws.”
”'Accidentally'--and 'advent.i.tious means'! That does not happen so often. It may happen by finding a gold mine--once in ten thousand times--or by cornering some commodity on the stock or Produce Exchange once in one hundred thousand times, but even then a man must have intellect--force--courage--resourcefulness--wonderful powers of organization.”
”So has the burglar and highwayman,” he interrupted.
”But they are criminals--they break the law.”
”What law? Why law more than these others? Is not the fundamental law, not to do evil to others?”
”The law established by society for its protection.”
”Who made those laws?”
”The people--through their representatives,” I added hastily, as I saw him preparing to combat it.
”The people, indeed! precious little part they have had in the making of the laws. Those laws were made, not by the people--who had no voice in their making, but by a small cla.s.s--originally the Chief--the Emperor--the King--the Barons--the rich Burghers--the people had no part nor voice.”
”They received the benefit of them.”
”Only the crumbs which fell from their masters' tables. They got the gibbet, the dungeon, the rack, and the stick.”
”Wolffert, you would destroy all property rights.”
”My dear fellow, what nonsense you talk. I am only for changing the law to secure property rights for all, instead of for a cla.s.s, the necessity for which no longer exists, if it ever did exist.”
”Your own law-giver recognized it and inculcated it.” I thought this a good thrust. He waved it aside.
”That was for a primitive people in a primitive age, as your laws were for your people in their primitive age. But do you suppose that Moses would make no modification now?”