The Common Sense of Socialism

It seems to me that people are not enough aware of the monstrous state of society, absolutely without a parallel in the history of the world, with a population poor, miserable and degraded in body and mind, as if they were slaves, and yet called freemen. The hopes entertained by many of the effects to be wrought by new churches and schools, while the social evils of their conditions are left uncorrected, appear to me utterly wild.--Dr. Arnold, of Rugby. The working-classes are entitled to claim that the whole field of social institutions should be re-examined, and every question considered as if it now arose for the first time, with the idea constantly in view that the persons who are to be convinced are not those who owe their ease and importance to the present system, but persons who have no other interest in the matter than abstract justice and the general good of the community.--John Stuart Mill.