What to Do? Thoughts Evoked By the Census of MoscowTolstoy, Leo, graf
Philosophy
What to Do? Thoughts Evoked By the Census of Moscow
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Moscow (Russia) -- Social conditions; Social problems
And accordingly rich people congregate, and join themselves to other rich
people with similar requirements, in the city, where the gratification of
every luxurious taste is carefully protected by a numerous police force.
Well-rooted inhabitants of the city of this sort, are the governmental
officials; every description of artisan and professional man has sprung
up around them, and with them the wealthy join their forces. All that a
rich man has to do there is to take a fancy to a thing, and he can get
it. It is also more agreeable for a rich man to live there, because
there he can gratify his vanity; there is some one with whom he can vie
in luxury; there is some one to astonish, and there is some one to
outshine. But the principal reason why it is more comfortable in the
city for a rich man is that formerly, in the country, his luxury made him
awkward and uneasy; while now, on the contrary, it would be awkward for
him not to live luxuriously, not to live like all his peers around him.
That which seemed dreadful and awkward in the country, here appears to be
just as it should be. [Rich people congregate in the city; and there,
under the protection of the authorities, they calmly demand every thing
that is brought thither from the country. And the countryman is, in some
measure, compelled to go thither, where this uninterrupted festival of
the wealthy which demands all that is taken from him is in progress, in
order to feed upon the crumbs which fall from the tables of the rich; and
partly, also, because, when he beholds the care-free, luxurious life,
approved and protected by everybody, he himself becomes desirous of
regulating his life in such a way as to work as little as possible, and
to make as much use as possible of the labors of others.
And so he betakes himself to the city, and finds employment about the
wealthy, endeavoring, by every means in his power, to entice from them
that which he is in need of, and conforming to all those conditions which
the wealthy impose upon him, he assists in the gratification of all their
whims; he serves the rich man in the bath and in the inn, and as
cab-driver and prostitute, and he makes for him equipages, toys, and
fashions; and he gradually learns from the rich man to live in the same
manner as the latter, not by labor, but by divers tricks, getting away
from others the wealth which they have heaped together; and he becomes
corrupt, and goes to destruction. And this colony, demoralized by city
wealth, constitutes that city pauperism which I desired to aid and could
not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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