Consequently, while the
first are defenders of religion, authority, and the other
principles contemporary with, and conservative of,
property,--although their criticism, based solely on reason,
deals frequent blows at their own prejudices,--the second reject
authority and faith, and appeal exclusively to science,--
although a certain religiosity, utterly illiberal, and an
unscientific disdain for facts, are always the most obvious
characteristics of their doctrines.
For the rest, neither party ever ceases to accuse the other of
incapacity and sterility.
The socialists ask their opponents to account for the inequality
of conditions, for those commercial debaucheries in which
monopoly and competition, in monstrous union, perpetually give
birth to luxury and misery; they reproach economic theories,
always modeled after the past, with leaving the future hopeless;
in short, they point to the regime of property as a horrible
hallucination, against which humanity has protested and struggled
for four thousand years.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96