Where we came from is torn down, where we are is
Condemned, and where we’re going is not Built up yet …²
Today’s Fruits are nothing compared to what can be done—³
We announce Splendors and Majesties to make all
The previous politics of the earth insignificant.⁴
The Land belongs to no one—
And its Fruits belong to Everyone.⁵
The title deeds of landed property should be given to the Flames,
And the whole Soil of the earth revert to the Public, from whom it
Had been wrongfully abstracted and most unequally distributed⁶
Until all that was owned is Repaid, and all that
Was owned, Returned—until all that was Lost
Is Found, and all that was bound, Free!⁷
We pay the highest Tribute we can
To each: we Trust them to do Right—⁸
The Voluntary Associations which already now begin to cover
All the fields of human activity shall take a still greater extension
So as to Substitute themselves for the state in all its functions—⁹
That Government is best which governs not at all.¹⁰
¹ Zapatistas
² Alan Dugan, On Being Out-Classed by Class
³ Fidel Castro, May Day Celebration 1961
⁴ Walt Whitman, So Long!
⁵ Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
⁶ Nathaniel Hawthorne, Earth’s Holocaust
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, Mountain Ways
⁸ Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
⁹ Peter Kropotkin, Encyclopedia Britannica 1911
¹⁰ Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience