From the School Library...

Raphael Hythloday: "...I am firmly persuaded that there is no way property can be equitably and justly distributed or the affairs of mortal men managed so as to make them happy unless private property is utterly abolished. But if it remains, there will also always remain a distressing and unavoidable burden of poverty and anxiety on the backs of the largest and best part of the human race... since you cannot give something to one person without taking it away from someone else."

Sir Thomas More: "Quite the contrary, it seems to me that no one can live comfortably where everything is held in common. For how can there be any abundance of goods when everyone stops working because he is no longer motivated by making a profit, and grows lazy because he relies on the labour of others? And then, when people are driven by want and there is no law which enables them to keep their acquisitions for their own use, wouldn't everyone necessarily suffer from continual bloodhsed and turmoil? Especially when the magistrates no longer have any respect or authority, for I cannot conceive how they could have any among people who are all placed on one level."

~ Excerpted from Book I of Sir Thomas More's Utopia

* * *

Persevero,

Scribe