<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: [lbo-talk] Genocide, Holocaust</title></head><body> <div>At 11:00 AM -0400 1/6/03, Chris Doss wrote:<br> <br> >What do you do in a case of a culture like the Gypsies (at least the<br> >ones I see), in which the whole source of income is beggary and<br> >petty crime? What bothers me so much is not that they do this --<br> >beggary and petty criminality aren't peculiar to Gypsies -- but that<br> >the children are given no other choice of lifestyle. They're not put<br> >in school. They are kept drugged half the time. They don't learn<br> >anything but how to beg. Should the culture be respected, or should<br> >these kids be forced to attend school? This is not a rhetorical<br> >question, I really do not know the answer.<br> <br> Here's the answer. You may not like it though.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Bill Bartlett</div> <div>Bracknell Tas<br> <br> Extract from from 'Down and out in Paris and London' by George Owrell<br> </div> <blockquote>It is worth saying something about the social position of beggars,</blockquote> <blockquote>for when one has consorted with them, and found that they are</blockquote> <blockquote>ordinary human beings, one cannot help being struck by the curious</blockquote> <blockquote>attitude that society takes towards them. People seem to feel that</blockquote> <blockquote>there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary</blockquote> <blockquote>'working' men. They are a race apart--outcasts, like criminals and</blockquote> <blockquote>prostitutes. Working men 'work', beggars do not 'work'; they are</blockquote> <blockquote>parasites, worthless in their very nature. It is taken for granted</blockquote> <blockquote>that a beggar does not 'earn' his living, as a bricklayer or a</blockquote> <blockquote>literary critic 'earns' his. He is a mere social excrescence,</blockquote> <blockquote>tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable.</blockquote> <blockquote><br></blockquote> <blockquote>Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no ESSENTIAL</blockquote> <blockquote>difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless</blockquote> <blockquote>respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what</blockquote> <blockquote>is WORK? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by</blockquote> <blockquote>adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all</blockquote> <blockquote>weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a</blockquote> <blockquote>trade like any other; quite useless, of course--but, then, many</blockquote> <blockquote>reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar</blockquote> <blockquote>compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the</blockquote> <blockquote>sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday</blockquote> <blockquote>newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout--in</blockquote> <blockquote>short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts</blockquote> <blockquote>more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify</blockquote> <blockquote>him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in</blockquote> <blockquote>suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets</blockquote> <blockquote>him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men</blockquote> <blockquote>the right to despise him.</blockquote> <blockquote><br></blockquote> <blockquote>Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised?--for they are</blockquote> <blockquote>despised, universally. I believe it is for the simple reason that</blockquote> <blockquote>they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether</blockquote> <blockquote>work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing</blockquote> <blockquote>demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modem talk about</blockquote> <blockquote>energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning</blockquote> <blockquote>is there except 'Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it'?</blockquote> <blockquote>Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail,</blockquote> <blockquote>and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a</blockquote> <blockquote>week at begging, it would become a respectable profession</blockquote> <blockquote>immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a</blockquote> <blockquote>businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way</blockquote> <blockquote>that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modem people, sold his</blockquote> <blockquote>honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which</blockquote> <blockquote>it is impossible to grow rich.</blockquote> </body> </html>