The Salvaging of CivilizationWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
The Salvaging of Civilization
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Civilization, Modern -- 20th century; Education
But Health and Sex do not exhaust the problems of conduct. There are
also the problems of Property and Trade and Labour. Upon these also the
old Bible did not hesitate to be explicit. For example, it insisted
meticulously upon the right of labour to glean and upon the seller
giving a "full measure brimming over," and it prohibited usury. But here
again the Bible is extraordinarily unhelpful when we come to modern
issues, because its rules and regulations were framed for a community
and for an economic system altogether cruder, more limited and less
complicated than our own. Much of the Old Testament we have to remember
was already in existence before the free use of coined metal. The vast
credit system of our days, joint-stock company enterprise and the like,
were beyond the imagination of that time. So too was any anticipation of
modern industrialism. And accordingly we live to-day in a world in which
neither property nor employment have ever been properly moralized. The
bulk of our present social and economic troubles is due very largely to
that.
In no matter is this muddled civilization of ours more hopelessly at
sixes and sevens than in this matter of the rights and duties of
property. Manifestly property is a trust for the community varying in
its responsibilities with the nature of the property. The property one
has in one's toothbrush is different from the property one has in ten
thousand acres of land; the property one has in a photograph of a friend
is different from the property one has in some irreplaceable masterpiece
of portraiture. The former one may destroy with a good conscience, but
not the latter. At least so it seems to me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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