Democracy
and capitalism have very different beliefs about the proper distribution of power.
One believes in a completely equal distribution of political power, 'one man,
one vote', while the other believes that it is the duty of the economically fit
to drive the unfit out of business and into economic extinction. 'Survival of
the fittest' and inequalities in purchasing power is what capitalist efficiency
is all about. Individuals and firms become efficient to be rich. To put it in
its starkest form, capitalism is perfectly compatible with slavery. The American
South had such a system for more than two centuries. Democracy is not comparable
with slavery.
-- Lester Thurow
 | *
The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by
force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave
or ownership of the money that he must get to live.
-- Leo
Tolstoy "Money
is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact
that it is impersonal - that there is no human relation between master and slave”
--
Leo Tolstoy |
| |
“I freed a
thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were
slaves.”
-- Harriet
Tubman |
Not
only do I pray for it, on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly forsee
that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our
union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle.
-- George Washington
| It would seem
that man was born a slave, and that slavery is his natural condition. At the same
time nothing on earth can stop man from feeling himself born for liberty. Never,
whatever may happen, can he accept servitude; for he is a thinking creature.
-- Simone Weil |  |
In
war the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the
poor. We must work to live, and they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil
for them all day long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children
fade away before their time, and the faces of those we love become hard and evil.
We tread out the grapes, and another drinks the wine. We sow the corn, and our
own board is empty. We have chains, though no eyes behold them; and are slaves,
though men call us free.
-- Oscar Wilde
Human
slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery
of the machine, the future of the world depends.
-- Oscar Wilde
Freedom
Day
- February 1
End
Slavery Day
- December 2
