Nowhere in my system of thought is
there work for the idea of Rights and the conception of conscientious
litigious-spirited people exactly observing nicely defined
relationships.
You will note, for example, that I base my Socialism on the idea of a
collective development and not on the "right" of every man to his own
labour, or his "right" to work, or his "right" to subsistence. All these
ideas of "rights" and of a social "contract" however implicit are merely
conventional ways of looking at things, conventions that have arisen in
the mercantile phase of human development.
Laws and rights, like common terms in speech, are provisional things,
conveniences for taking hold of a number of cases that would otherwise
be unmanageable. The appeal to Justice is a necessarily inadequate
attempt to de-individualize a case, to eliminate the self's biassed
attitude. I have declared that it is my wilful belief that everything
that exists is significant and necessary. The idea of Justice seems to
me a defective, quantitative application of the spirit of that belief to
men and women.
Pages:
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244