{"id":747,"date":"2015-07-04T15:17:36","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T03:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radiescent.wordpress.com\/?p=747"},"modified":"2015-07-04T15:17:36","modified_gmt":"2015-07-04T03:17:36","slug":"chesterton-explains-the-robbery-of-poor-greece-by-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/2015\/07\/04\/chesterton-explains-the-robbery-of-poor-greece-by-the-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"Chesterton explains the robbery of poor Greece by the rich&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>To-day the rich man knows in his heart that he is a cancer and not an organ of the State. He differs from all other thieves or parasites for this reason: that the brigand who takes by force wishes his victims to be rich. But he who wins by a one-sided contract actually wishes them to be poor. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rob_Roy_MacGregor\">Rob Roy<\/a> in a cavern, hearing a company approaching, will hope (or if in a pious mood, pray) that they may come laden with gold or goods. But Mr. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_D._Rockefeller\">Rockefeller<\/a>, in his factory, knows that if those who pass are laden with goods they will pass on. He will therefore (if in a pious mood) pray that they may be destitute, and so be forced to work his factory for him for a starvation wage. It is said (and also, I believe, disputed) that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gebhard_Leberecht_von_Bl%C3%BCcher\">Bl\u00fccher <\/a>riding through the richer parts of London exclaimed, &#8220;What a city to sack!&#8221; But Bl\u00fccher was a soldier if he was a bandit. The true sweater feels quite otherwise. It is when he drives through the poorest parts of London that he finds the streets paved with gold, being paved with prostrate servants; it is when he sees the grey lean leagues of Bow and Poplar that his soul is uplifted and he knows he is secure. This is not rhetoric, but economics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>G. K. Chesterton, <em>Eugenics and Other Evils<\/em> (1922) [<a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1Rax6KC\">link to source on archive.org<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To-day the rich man knows in his heart that he is a cancer and not an organ of the State. He differs from all other thieves or parasites for this reason: that the brigand who takes by force wishes his victims to be rich. But he who wins by a one-sided contract actually wishes them [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,55],"tags":[78,113,121],"class_list":["post-747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-quotes","tag-chesterton","tag-poverty","tag-robbery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}