Commercial War [portion]
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Author : William Morris

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      Now first I suppose nobody, however rash he may be, can suppose that such a change
      can be brought about suddenly, or by the conscious efforts of a few or even a great
      many people. It is true that in times past there have been great men who have noted
      the woeful way in which the mass of people live, and who from the depths of their
      own insight and benevolence have imagined schemes for a better life, and in some of
      them enthusiasm and energy have been so strong that they have tried to realize
      those ideals, and for a time have seemed as if they might succeed; but the
      relentless march of the commercial army has crushed those schemes, and the ordinary
      shrewd bourgeois intelligence that can see no further than a limited part of its
      own time has cried out mockery against Socialism over their ruins. Robert Owen
      thought that if the advantages of a communal or cooperative life were only shown
      to people clearly enough, they would embrace it as people take to a new form of
      theology; forgetting that the chain which binds them is real enough and the mere
      hope and example of the success of such a life on a small scale will not break that
      chain which it has taken so many centuries to forge. That on the one hand, but on
      the other the bourgeois rejoicing over the ruins of New Lanark and the failure of
      the schemes of the most generous and best of men has had no eye for the cloud as
      big as a man's hand which has been gathering and growing while he has been hugging
      himself over the cleared heavens of his commercial "do or you will be done brown"
      paradise. It is the commercial system itself which will kill the commercial system,
      and we Socialists, hard as we shall have to work, shall only have to assist nature
      in that operation.
    
	
	      Bibliographical Note
    
    
       Title
    
    
    Commercial War [portion] 
   
   
        Deliveries
   
   27th March 1885 before the Croydon branch of the SDF at Crown Hill, Croydon
   12th April 1885 before the local LEL at the Academy Schools, Hoxton St, Hoxton
   18th April 1885 before the Hammersmith branch of the SL at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith
   


     From : Marxists.org

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     Commercial War [portion] -- Added : February 20, 2021

     Commercial War [portion] -- Updated : January 07, 2022

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