It is sad that here we are in the 21st. century, still angry at the inequality, still complaining about being ripped off by our "betters" and at best most groups want to tinker with the system to make it a little bit fairer. A brief look at history tells you that all the reformers up to the present day have done nothing to change that inequality and injustice. Today the rich are richer than ever before, while the poor struggle to stave off deprivation. When will we ever learn.
It's not as if we have been unaware of the injustice we live under, it has been recorded and catalogued in song and poem, and in the history of the struggles of the ordinary people, but still there is this sad belief, that reform, after centuries of failure, somehow will deliver. We have to wake up to the fact that capitalism cannot be reformed, under this system, any pittances won in struggle can and will be taken back at a later date, note the destruction of the hard won welfare state.
How many more centuries will we allow our kids to be shackled to poverty, how many more centuries will we carry the burden of the parasitic rich on our backs, while we struggle for survival? The answer is in our own hands, we have the power, the ability, the means and the imagination to destroy this capitalist cancer that is devouring our world, all that is lacking is the will.
This poem, by an unknown author from the 17th. century, highlights the awareness of injustice back then, but it still applies to our world today. The privatisation of the public assets today, is just a modern version of the enclosures of the past.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
Who steals the goose off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who takes things that are yours and mine.
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who takes things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
