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.