Misery and the Way Out

What is the condition of Society under which we live? Is it satisfactory, is it quite as we should all like it to be? Does it quite please you who are listening to me, so that there is nothing you want to alter in it?

If that is the case, then none of my hearers are poor, and none have any fear of becoming poor; I am speaking to a crowd of rich men who are quite sure that they will always be rich. Well I see that is not quite the case; some of us are poor, some of us are afraid of becoming poor; some of us have to do very unpleasant work; all of us have to work more than we like; and we know of people who are worse off in all these matters than we are: So we do want to alter things if we could: we are not quite contented: if we say we are, we are not speaking truly but say so because we don’t ‘want to argue, or because we want to get something out of rich people whose interest it is that we should be contented.

Well I should wonder if we were contented; for when we look at the present state of Society we find that the majority of people have every reason to wish to be better off than they are, that in point of fact they are living in misery. Let us look at the various conditions of life and see what portion of the whole people has good reason to be pleased with their share of the wealth, ease, good living, in a word, the happiness of this most highly civilized country...