[What is Property? by P. J. Proudhon]@TWC D-Link book
What is Property?

PART SECOND
142/323

In the twelfth century, a new spirit pervading all society gave the slave his rights, and through justice breathed new life into the heart of nations.
It has been said, and often repeated, that Christianity regenerated the world.

That is true; but it seems to me that there is a mistake in the date.

Christianity had no influence upon Roman society; when the Barbarians came, that society had disappeared.

For such is God's curse upon property; every political organization based upon the exploitation of man, shall perish: slave-labor is death to the race of tyrants.

The patrician families became extinct, as the feudal families did, and as all aristocracies must.
It was in the middle ages, when a reactionary movement was beginning to secretly undermine accumulated property, that the influence of Christianity was first exercised to its full extent.
The destruction of feudalism, the conversion of the serf into the commoner, the emancipation of the communes, and the admission of the Third Estate to political power, were deeds accomplished by Christianity exclusively.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books