On Labour and Luxury

I concluded, after having said every thing that concerned myself; but
I cannot refrain, from a desire to say something more which concerns
everybody, from verifying the deductions which I have drawn, by
comparisons. I wish to say why it seems to me that a very large
number of our social class ought to come to the same thing to which I
have come; and also to state what will be the result if a number of
people should come to the same conclusion.

I think that many will come to the point which I have attained:
because if the people of our sphere, of our caste, will only take a
serious look at themselves, then young persons, who are in search of
personnel happiness, will stand aghast at the ever-increasing
wretchedness of their life, which is plainly leading them to
destruction; conscientious people will be shocked at the cruelty and
the illegality of their life; and timid people will be terrified by
the danger of their mode of life.

The Wretchedness of our Life: --However much we rich people may
reform, however much we may bolster up this delusive life of ours
with the aid of our science and art, this life will become, with
every year, both weaker and more diseased; with every year the number
of suicides, and the refusals to bear children, will increase; with
every year we shall feel the growing sadness of our life; with every
generation, the new generations of people of this sphere of society
will become more puny.

It is obvious that in this path of the augmentation of the comforts
and the pleasures of life, in the path of every sort of cure, and of
artificial preparations for the improvements of the sight, the
hearing, the appetite, false teeth, false hair, respiration, massage,
and so on, there can be no salvation. That people who do not make
use of these perfected preparations are stronger and healthier, has
become such a truism, that advertisements are printed in the
newspapers of stomach-powders for the wealthy, under the heading,
"Blessings for the poor," {1} in which it is stated that only the
poor are possessed of proper digestive powers, and that the rich
require assistance, and, among other various sorts of assistance,
these powders. It is impossible to set the matter right by any
diversions, comforts, and powders, whatever; only a change of life
can rectify it.

The Inconsistency of our Life with our Conscience: --however we may
seek to justify our betrayal of humanity to ourselves, all our
justifications will crumble into dust in the presence of the
evidence. All around us, people are dying of excessive labor and of
privation; we ruin the labor of others, the food and clothing which
are indispensable to them, merely with the object of procuring
diversion