Revolution

The first five letters of revolution, if reversed, spell lover.

The chapters I'm reading right now in Les Miserables deal with the idea of revolution. Revolution, he asserts, is necessary from time to time to clear out the excesses of previous epochs. There are some, he notes, who take action, and others who contemplate. Both are necessary, for contemplation can lead to more directed action, and action without contemplation is reactionary and aimless.

In the midst of all this, he gives us this gem:

All the problems that the socialists proposed to themselves, cosmogonic visions, revery and mysticism being cast aside, can be reduced to two principal problems.

First problem: To produce wealth.

Second problem: To share it.

The first problem contains the question of work.

The second contains the question of salary.

In the first problem the employment of forces is in question.

In the second, the distribution of enjoyment.

From the proper employment of forces results public power.

From a good distribution of enjoyments results individual happiness.

By a good distribution, not an equal but an equitable distribution must be understood.

From these two things combined, the public power without, individual happiness within, results social prosperity.

Social prosperity means the man happy, the citizen free, the nation great.

England solves the first of these two problems. She creates wealth admirably, she divides it badly. This solution which is complete on one side only leads her fatally to two extremes: monstrous opulence, monstrous wretchedness. All enjoyments for some, all privations for the rest, that is to say, for the people; privilege, exception, monopoly, feudalism, born from toil itself. A false and dangerous situation, which sates public power or private misery, which sets the roots of the State in the sufferings of the individual. A badly constituted grandeur in which are combined all the material elements and into which no moral element enters.

Communism and agrarian law think that they solve the second problem. They are mistaken. Their division kills production. Equal partition abolishes emulation; and consequently labor. It is a partition made by the butcher, which kills that which it divides. It is therefore impossible to pause over these pretended solutions. Slaying wealth is not the same thing as dividing it.

The two problems require to be solved together, to be well solved. The two problems must be combined and made but one.

Solve only the first of the two problems; you will be Venice, you will be England. You will have, like Venice, an artificial power, or, like England, a material power; you will be the wicked rich man. You will die by an act of violence, as Venice died, or by bankruptcy, as England will fall. And the world will allow to die and fall all that is merely selfishness, all that does not represent for the human race either a virtue or an idea.

It is well understood here, that by the words Venice, England, we designate not the peoples, but social structures; the oligarchies superposed on nations, and not the nations themselves. The nations always have our respect and our sympathy. Venice, as a people, will live again; England, the aristocracy, will fall, but England, the nation, is immortal. That said, we continue.

Solve the two problems, encourage the wealthy, and protect the poor, suppress misery, put an end to the unjust farming out of the feeble by the strong, put a bridle on the iniquitous jealousy of the man who is making his way against the man who has reached the goal, adjust, mathematically and fraternally, salary to labor, mingle gratuitous and compulsory education with the growth of childhood, and make of science the base of manliness, develop minds while keeping arms busy, be at one and the same time a powerful people and a family of happy men, render property democratic, not by abolishing it, but by making it universal, so that every citizen, without exception, may be a proprietor, an easier matter than is generally supposed; in two words, learn how to produce wealth and how to distribute it, and you will have at once moral and material greatness; and you will be worthy to call yourself France.

This is what socialism said outside and above a few sects which have gone astray; that is what it sought in facts, that is what it sketched out in minds.

Efforts worthy of admiration! Sacred attempts!

Well said, Mr. Hugo.

Interestingly, he wrote these lines more than 150 years ago in a very different world. His was the world of Dickens and Shaw, of Marx and Engels, of the absolute monarchy of the monopoly. And he was right.- England's political power did diminish. But what we (as Americans) need to learn from this is the lesson that England never has: namely, how to nourish the poor without overburdening anyone.

What we need to do is determine what our values are - our real values - and figure out how to best achieve those values. What is it that we truly prize as a country? What are the things that define us as a citizenry? 

Education?

National defense?

Health care?

Environment?

Justice?

Prosperity?

Fiscal responsibility (on a national scale)?

Free markets?

Property rights?

Once we determine what our values really are, we can set about prioritizing them. And once that is determined, it would become easy to assess how to use tax money. The tax money we garner would be used in an efficient manner, and would be easily understood and justifiable. Right now, I feel that there's a lot of frustration with the government because people either don't know where their tax dollars are being spent or they don't feel that their tax dollars are being used in a manner that reflects their value system. And that's a precarious position in which to find yourself - if you're a system of government. Because government ultimately must represent the needs, goals, aspirations, and values of the community at large. If it does not, a revolution such as Mr. Hugo writes about is usually in the offing.

It's easy to say things like "tax the rich" or "economic justice" or "financial parity". But what do these things really mean, when it comes to real-world application? Because we cannot be governed by bumper stickers or catch phrases, no matter how cute and concise. We need real change, real solutions to real problems. And it must start with an assessment of our values as a national community. Prioritized values that are properly attended to... That's the road to real, lasting peace and prosperity.

The next question is - how do we get started?

More on that later. :)