Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thoughtWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thought
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Civilization; Communication and traffic; Social prediction; Twentieth century -- Forecasts
Those who belong to this shareholding class only partially, who
partially depend upon dividends and partially upon activities, occur in
every rank and order of the whole social body. The waiter one tips
probably has a hundred or so in some remote company, the will of the
eminent labour reformer reveals an admirably distributed series of
investments, the bishop sells tea and digs coal, or at any rate gets a
profit from some unknown persons tea-selling or coal-digging, to eke out
the direct recompense of his own modest corn-treading. Indeed, above the
labouring class, the number of individuals in the social body whose
gross income is entirely the result of their social activities is very
small. Previously in the world's history, saving a few quite exceptional
aspects, the possession and retention of property was conditional upon
activities of some sort, honest or dishonest, work, force, or fraud. But
the shareholding ingredient of our new society, so far as its
shareholding goes, has no need of strength or wisdom; the countless
untraceable Owner of the modern world presents in a multitudinous form
the image of a Merovingian king. The shareholder owns the world _de
jure_, by the common recognition of the rights of property; and the
incumbency of knowledge, management, and toil fall entirely to others.
He toils not, neither does he spin; he is mechanically released from the
penalty of the Fall, he reaps in a still sinful world all the practical
benefits of a millennium--without any of its moral limitations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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