A Piece From Economics (fragmentary)
But who is more by number, rich or poor? The answer is obvious as everyone knows that there is poor men much more than rich. (...)
How do the rich people live and how the poor people do? No doubt the rich men live in carelessness, because they are sleeping 12 hours a day, eating 3 or 4 dishes in a repast, riding majestic horses and driving smooth carriages, walking in silk, living in lordly rooms, they are always rejoicing, never suffering because of rough labor, they aren't making any useful things and in the same time they are controlling all the treasure of land, using everything for their sake in pleasure of different snacks and dainties, in short - all the rich men like ministers, governors, public prosecutors, officers of the court, policemen, generals, lawyers, doctors, pastors, teachers, salesmen, publicans etc, occupy a dignified, safe and smiling status because all they are doing is giving a different precepts, orders, laws and prohibitions for the simple, unlearned poor men, sending them to one or another side and watching are these precepts, orders and laws executed by those simple and unlearned poor people, punishing them for each outstanding task or mistake, moreover, all these rich people are respected and honored, obeyed and even praised by the suppressed and despised poor workers. Really, the status of rich men is enviable.
But how do the poor men live? If they can't get even a 3 hour long sleep some day, they even have no salt and bread enough, they have no simple shirt to cover their naked skin, they even have no one pleasant room, if they are not allowed to rejoice even one day a year, if they always have to shed tears, cry out, feel sorrow and if they have to plod hardly and if they can't get any benefit, snacks and gains for their rough labor, moreover, if they are suppressed, tormented, decayed, employed by other men, and if they are strongly punished for any grumbling. Consequently you perhaps may reason in following way: If the poor men are exploited and tormented in a different ways, if they are ordered on one or another side by rich men, if they must obey all the precepts and orders of any rich men, if they must produce all the treasures with their own hands for the rich men and if they have to keep up those rich men and, moreover, if they aren't even respected by the rich men, they are living bad, very bad, miserably bad, beyond description bad and beyond compare bad and they are occupying a miserable, unsafe and undignified status. And actually it is so. Really miserable, undignified and inexpressible is the status of the poor men.
But, dear reader, does the order you see existing now, has always existed in this lovable God's land Latvia? Were the people divided into a two groups formerly?
1. The ones who are doing
nothing, are ruling everything and living in various dainties, sweets and
amenities, who are profligates, clock-watchers, vermins, loafers, perverts and
other blackguards.
2. The workers, who are making all the useful things, are not ruling anything, always suffering, tear-shedding and lamenting.
Were the poor people suppressed, exploited and sucked out by rich people and, moreover, were forced by those to praise, notice, vaunt, respect and honor the rich ones for ever? Were there always the suppressors, blackmailers, exploiters, governors and managers, honored and respected clock-watchers, vermins, loafers, perverts, blackguards and other fiends from one side, and suppressed, sucked out, exploited, law executing, untired workers, makers of all useful things, suffering, tear-shedding and lamenting forever simple workers, from other side? (...)
What does the fiend do? The
fiend:
1.
Cuts a throat of other person,
2.
Cuts of a head of another person,
3.
Kills another person,
4.
Wrests a heart from a chest of the live man,
5.
Cuts off all the limbs of another person,
6. Bereaves from another person a wholesome food, leaving only herbage, trees and sand, in short - a fiend is person who is doing everything to kill his fellows and who is trying to harm them as much as possible.
What does the landlord do? The landlord takes away the land, takes away the thing what man can't live without. If man can't live, it means he will die. So in this way landlord something like throat-cutter. (...)
Just like John can send away every unliked guest out of his room, so the landlord can send away 10 000 and more people out of his land, because his land where those 10 000 people were settled down is the same unalienable property as John's room, where his guest stopped for a while. Just as John without punishment can send away the unliked guest out of his room, so the landlord can send away all the people out of his land and be not punished for that. Just as no one can take away John's rights to send away the unliked guest out of his room, so no one can take away the rights of landlord to send away all the people out of his land. And if it's possible to limit the landlord's rights to use his property as he wants, then it's possible to prohibit a landlord to wear boots, pants, ride a horse, plant a potatoes, eat pies etc, in short - it is possible to prohibit every men, including you, my reader, to wear boots, pants, jackets, use warm socks, and eat the pies and bread roasted by your own mother. But is it really possible? I think my reader will be the first who would answer that it is not possible, it's impossible to forbid a man's last rights.
Let's assume now that on a landlord's land (where are living 10 000 people) has given an order for all the people to leave the land. What are these 10 000 gonna do if they know that no other landlord won't give them any refuge on his land? How are they going to live, what are they going to eat, where they are going to sleep and how long will they live? In the beginning they will eat food taken with them, and will sleep on a road, using the clothes taken with them. But when they will run out of food taken with them, they will die of hunger because they won't have any opportunity to refresh their food reserves in any way.So it is obvious that they lives won't last long. If someone asks who killed them, the answer has to be - the landlord who ordered them to leave his land. But will be this landlord punished for this killing of 10 000 people, or will he be counted as fiend or throat-cutter? No way and never! So see, you blind reader, that landlord defended by you, may become the most dreadful fiend and destroyer because he can easily destroy 10 000 or even more people only with few sentences in any fine morning of July, and because of that he won't be counted as a fiend. (...)
And you, my reader, still want to defend such order of life which lets and gives a chance to some stupid landlord to ruin a 10 000 people in any time? Why won't you defend the order which doesn't let a fool to grab the power of government in his hands and which won't let anybody to become a fiend. If after all this you still want to jib that landlord can't become a fiend, I wish you were in circumstances when your landlord send you away out of his land, no other landlord accepts you and you have to die of hunger because perhaps in this moment you will ascertain the landlord can become a fiend. (...)
...that's why a new class of people arose which cared for the men that they have not to go far and go different places and look for a necessary thing, for everyone could gain what he needed very fast. This new class was called as tradesmen and their duty or job was called as a trade, that is, as selling and buying different things. In the very beginning this class brought a great benefit for the men because it wasn't necessary to go far or try to find the necessary thing, but it was possible to gain it at once, giving a due payment. But after a time this class of people gained in their hands all the necessary things and started to require 5, 6 or even 10 times much price for every sold thing and give only the 5th or 6th part of the worth of this thing, in such way they suppressed, exploited and sucked out every peasant and worker. These are the chains of tradesmen in which are locked most of people even today. (...) But these tradesmen do not make any worthy thing, they rule over all the useful things and live in lordliness, candies and dainties. But if they don't make any useful thing and nevertheless live and live well, aren't they loafers, vermins, suckers, fools and accomplished pieces of shit?
And if they with all their laziness, fribbling, clock-watching and time wasting, making no useful things, living with all their pride, candies, sweets and dainties, with all the fooling, robbing, stealing, sucking out, exploiting and cheating the peasants, are also able in some way to swot and instil to the Latvian peasants and workers the thoughts that they (tradesmen) are not lazy, but are useful and good for those ones, that they aren't at all robbing, stealing, sucking out and exploiting, aren't they the same fiends as landlords? (...)
What do the clericals do? They announce now and without stopping, and forever the teachings for men to obey government because where is one government, it is sent from God, it means for them not to revolt against different cheating, dirty deals, murderings etc, because those are allowed by government and the revolting against any dirty deal allowed by government would be a revolting against the very God.
In this way clericals teach and habituate people to surrender and obey that government which is at the helm of power, it means, if a day before yesterday the helm of power was in the hands of cheater, then the clericals invited and prompted to obey the cheaters the same day, if yesterday the helm of power was in the hands of thiefs, the clericals invited and prompted people to obey the thiefs the same day, if today the helm of power is held by murderers then clericals teach to obey these murderers, if tomorrow the helm of power will be in the hands of the perverts, the clericals will teach and encourage to obey those perverts, if a day after tomorrow the helm of power will be in a hands of the tormentors, predators and blackguards, then the same day clericals will teach and encourage people to obey those tormentors, predators and blackguards, in short, the clericals are teaching and inviting people to obey each one panhandler and vermin who in some kind of way got a helm of power in his hands. If someone asks what kind of truth do the clericals announce and what do they defend, the answer is - they defend any evil, enormity and crime if those are done by the government, so in every moment they defend the ruling power or order existing now because they are it's submissive servants, who, knowing or not knowing, wanting or not wanting, are defending order existing now, it means, they are defending the suppressing, sucking out and exploiting of workmen and peasants by landlords and tradesmen or these two chains noticed before, in which the Latvians are locked and held by landlords and tradesmen.
So the order existing now is not justifiable anymore because it allows to the smallest part of people to suppress, suck out and torment the largest part of people in the most terrible way. So, dear reader, if order existing now is not justifiable, can it exist still or - is it rationally to keep and support it still?
The order existing now can exist still if somebody is supporting it, but is not necessary to keep, support and guard this useless and unjustifiable order of life because only something good, justifiable and useful is worth to support but anything what is not good, useful and justifiable should be eliminated and wasted. People will never find their sufferings to be good or needful in any way. So this unjust and useless order of life existing now which allows the smallest part of people to suck out and suppress the largest part of men, can't be defended and supported any more, but it is necessary to eliminate, break, destroy, wreck and waste it. But if it is necessary to destroy the order of life existing now, then which method use to do it? Let's assume the order existing now may be broken with use of iron and fire. But who is gonna be the breakers? It's clear that I, the author of this article will be the first one, my fellow who gave this article to you will be the second one and you, my reader, will be the third one in case you are agree with this article. Let's assume that we will have such weapons which allows us to blow anyone away, but no one won't be able to harm us. How can we ruin the order existing now? We can explain with different examples and in different ways the order existing now is bad and useless and we can point the order existing now is bad and useless because it allows the smallest part of people to suppress, suck out, exploit and torment in the most terrible way the largest part of people. But if the people still won't believe us what should we do then? Then we can leave the people and walk away without making any changes or we can shoot all of them and make the changes which we think are necessary in the order of life existing now. But if we will really shoot all of them, will we really break the order existing now? No, we wouldn't, we would just take away their lives which we haven't given them and even cannot give, and wouldn't break any order as well because the order existing now can be changed only if all of people stay alive and accept another thoughts and creed. So if the people don't understand any of our explanations, it's better to leave them but we can't kill them because if we will do so, the evil on the world would become larger.
Then we would be absolutely sure that order of life existing now is not able to be destroyed with the weapons of war but it is possible to be destroyed with the means of peace, weapons of peace. These weapons of peace are impressing, introducing, explaining, proving and convince. It means we have to introduce people with bad sides of the order existing now, then explain why these bad sides are bad, then prove and convince that these sides which are thought to be bad are really bad. In other words, with help of introducing, showing up, explaining, proving and convince we have to lead people to the confession that the order of life existing now, is unuseful and bad and that's why it should be destroyed. (...
)
Because of this thing everyone of us who understands that the largest part of people suffer from poverty and throes just because the smallest part of people take away all things what the largest part of people have made by their own hands and muscles, has to try :
1. To open the eyes of this largest part of men, wake them up from the long sleep, show them in what kind of situation, awful, terrible and animal-like, they are,
2. To
wake up or to rise up the will of in their hearts to get out of that situation
and
3. To tell how to get out, throw away the old confession, taught from the landlords, that taking away the means of workmen done by the class of lords is not a crime or the work of fiend, and to suppose the another confession, that such taking away of means is a crime or work of the fiend.
When all of us know this all, we have to spend days and years, teaching people with means of peace from entire our hearts and minds, trying to put all that stuff noticed above in the heads of Latvians. Who can to do this all but doesn't do it with all his strength, such person doesn't wish anything good to his brother - workman, such person doesn't help his fellow to get out of disaster, such person helps a landlord to keep his brother - workman in the darkness and helps a landlord to suppress, rob, suck out and exploit his brother - workman, such person helps a landlord to save riches, exploiting his brother - workman, such person is a fool and fiend because he is a fellow and assistant of the suppressor, exploiter and murderer, such person is a suppressor, exploiter and murderer as well, even if he doesn't see it himself. (...)
Wake up, wake up once, you
spirit of freedom!
By Latvian author Eduards
Veidenbaums, 1886.
Translated into a
English by Lee and hk, 2000.
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