Monday 18 April 2011

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Discourse on Inequality’


Todays Green Thought is taken from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ‘Discourse on Inequality’ (What is the Origin of Inequality among men, and is it authorised by Natural Law ), 1754


The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. ”  

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