The
second is, that the general prosperity attains a greater height, and
is more widely diffused, in proportion to the amount and variety of
the personal energies enlisted in promoting it.
Putting these two propositions into a shape more special to their
present application; human beings are only secure from evil at the
hands of others in proportion as they have the power of being, and
are, self-protecting; and they only achieve a high degree of success
in their struggle with Nature in proportion as they are
self-dependent, relying on what they themselves can do, either
separately or in concert, rather than on what others do for them.
The former proposition- that each is the only safe guardian of his
own rights and interests- is one of those elementary maxims of
prudence, which every person, capable of conducting his own affairs,
implicitly acts upon, wherever he himself is interested. Many, indeed,
have a great dislike to it as a political doctrine, and are fond of
holding it up to obloquy, as a doctrine of universal selfishness. To
which we may answer, that whenever it ceases to be true that
mankind, as a rule, prefer themselves to others, and those nearest
to them to those more remote, from that moment Communism is not only
practicable, but the only defensible form of society; and will, when
that time arrives, be assuredly carried into effect.
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