Men say that civilization, our civilization, is a great good. But they
who have this conviction belong to the minority who live not only in this
civilization but by it; who live in ease, almost idleness, in comparison
to the lot of workmen.
All such men; kings, emperors, presidents, princes, ministers,
functionaries, soldiers, proprietors, investors, merchants, engineers,
doctors, scientists, professors, priests, writers, are so sure our
civilization is a great good that they cannot bear the thought that it
should disappear or that it should even be changed.
Ask, however, of the great mass of agricultural people, slave people,
Chinese, Hindus, Russians—ask nine-tenths of humanity whether this
civilization, which seems a superlative good to those who are not
agriculturists, is really a blessing or not? Strangely enough,
nine-tenths of humanity will reply in the negative.
What they need is soil, fertilizer, irrigation, sun, rain, forests,
harvests, and simple farming implements that one can make without
abandoning the agricultural life. As for civilization, either they know
nothing of it, or it presents itself to them under the aspect of the
debauchery of cities, with their prisons and their bagnios; or under the
aspect of taxes and useless monuments, of museums, of palaces; or under
the aspect of duties which prevent the free circulation of products; or
under the aspect of cannon, of armor and of armies that ravage whole
countries. And they say, if that is civilization it is of no use to them,
and that, it is even hurtful to them. The men who enjoy the advantages
of civilization maintain that it is good for all humanity; but in this
case they cannot bear testimony because they are both judges and parties
concerned.
One cannot deny that we are now far along the road of technical progress;
but what is far along on that road? A little minority lives on the back
of the work people; and the work people, they who serve the men that
enjoy civilization in the whole Christian world, continue to live as they
lived five or six centuries ago, profiting only from time to time of the
leavings of civilization.
Even if they live better, the breach that separates their lot from that
of the rich classes is rather wider than it was six centuries ago. I
do not say, as many think, that, since civilization is not an absolute
good we should throw out at one stroke the structure men have devised
for the struggle against nature; but I do say that, to make sure this
structure shall really serve men well, it is necessary that all and not
only a small minority enjoy it. No one must be deprived of his due by
others under the pretext that these benefits will return one day to his
descendants.
The good and reasonable life consists in choosing, of many ways that lie
open, the way that is best.
Therefore Christian humanity in the present situation should choose
between two things: either to continue along the path of wickedness in
which existing civilization gives the greatest number of benefits to the
smallest number of people, keeping the others in poverty and slavery; or
immediately, without postponing it to a future more or less remote, to
renounce in part, or wholly, the advantages which this civilization has
given to certain privileged ones, thereby preventing the liberation of
the majority of men from poverty and serfdom.
_A Coal Miner’s Story_