The individual is king, and all these other things exist for the service of the king. It is a mere superstition to worship any institution, as an institution, and not to judge it by its effects upon the character and the interests of men. It is here that socialist and Catholic make the same grand mistake. They exalt the organization, which is in truth as mere dust under our feet; they debase the man, for whose sake the organization and all other earthly things exist. They posit a priori the claims of the external organization as supreme and transcending all profit and loss account, and they call upon men to sacrifice a large part of their higher nature for the sake of this organization. They both of them sacrifice man, the king, to the mere dead instrument that exists for man’s service.
(bold mine)
This excerpt is from writer, theorist, and 19th century individualist Auberon Edward Herbert in a splendid rejoinder against socialist J. A. Hobson in 1899. (libertarianism.org)
No comments:
Post a Comment