"When, in countries that are called civilised, we see age going to the
workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of
government. It would seem, by the exterior appearance of such countries, that
all was happiness; but there lies hidden from the eye of common observation, a
mass of wretchedness that has scarcely any other chance, than to expire in
poverty or infamy. Its entrance into life is marked with the presage of its
fate; and until this is remedied, it is in vain to punish.
Civil government does not consist in executions; but in
making that provision for the instruction of youth, and the support of age, as
to exclude, as much as possible, profligacy from the one, and despair from the
other. Instead of this, the resources of a country are lavished upon kings, upon
courts, upon heirlings, imposters, and prostitutes; and even the poor
themselves, with all their wants upon them, are compelled to support the fraud
that oppresses them.
Why is it, that scarcely any are executed but the poor?
The fact is a proof, among other things, of a wretchedness in their condition.
Bred up without morals, and cast upon the world without a prospect, they are the
exposed sacrifice of vice and legal barbarity. The millions that are
superfluously wasted upon governments, are more than sufficient to reform those
evils, and to benefit the condition of every man in a nation, not included
within the purlieus of a court. This I hope to make appear in the progress of
this work."
"The only use to be made of this power, (and which it has always been
made) is to ward of taxes from itself, and throw the burden upon such articles
of consumption by which itself would be least affected."
"but since that era, nearly thirteen millions annually of new taxes
have been thrown upon consumption. The consequence of which has been a constant
increase in the number and wretchedness of the poor, and in the amount of the
poor-rates."
"It is in manufacturing towns and labouring villages that those
burdens press the heaviest; in many ways of which it is one class of poor
supporting another."
"This is one of the consequences resulting from an house of
legislation, composed on the ground of a combination of common interest; for
whatever their separate politics as to parties may be, in this they are
united."
The above quotes are from: "The Rights of Man" (1791-2) by Thomas
Paine.
If you have not read any of Paine - the American Revolutions fiercest
political theorist - then: "The Thomas Paine Reader"; Penguin. ISBN 0
14 044496 3, is a good place to start and, if you have read Paine, then this
time in history is a good a time as any to re-read; we find ourselves again in
the thrall of another kind of despotism akin to that of the church and Monarchy
that Paine railed against in his day.
