Sunday, September 9, 2018

This is what explains the paradox that must still puzzle many of those who have the sense to see it. I mean that the same age which tends to economic slavery tends to social anarchy; and especially to sexual anarchy. So long as men can be driven in droves like sheep, they can be as promiscuous as sheep; so long they are yoked together like cattle, they can, in one sense, breed as casually as cattle. What is lost in both cases is the sense of distinction; first the master's sense of the difference between man and man and then the man's sense of the difference between woman and woman. Plutocracy does not specially fear the natural appetites, because they also, like industrial organization, bring all men to one level; not unlike the level of the beast of the field. Plutocracy only objects to the artificial appetites, such as those for liberty, honour, decency, and private property. So long as it can make sure that a man's work is adequately monotonous and material, it will allow him the sort of pleasure that is really equally material and even monotonous. It offers the bribe of free love to ensure the loss of free labour.
-March 9, 1929, G.K.'s Weekly

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