Man recoils from trouble — from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose then between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the enjoyment from assuming their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the enjoyment that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be — whether that of wars, taxes, violence, restrictions, frauds, etc. — monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought that has given them birth. Oppression should be detested and resisted — it can hardly be called trivial.
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Man can only derive life and enjoyment from a perpetual search and appropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of his faculties to objects, or from labor. This is the origin of property. But also he may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of his fellow men. This is the origin of plunder.
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor;
by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources.
This process is the origin of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants
by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others.
This process is the origin of plunder.
Briefly, this doctrine is that man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep for ever things which are essentially impermanent. Chief among these things is his own person, for this is his means of isolating himself from the rest of life, his castle into which he can retreat and from which he can assert himself against external forces. He believes that this fortified and isolated position is the best means of obtaining happiness; it enables him to fight against change, to strive to keep pleasing things for himself, to shut out suffering and to shape circumstances as he wills. In short, it is his means of resisting life.
Desire for embodied existence is the root-cause of trouble. (...) Desire leads to experience. Experience leads to discrimination, detachment, self-knowledge –liberation. And what is liberation after all? To know that you are beyond birth and death. By forgetting who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature, you created so much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad dream. Enquiry also wakes you up. You need not wait for suffering; enquiry into happiness is better, for the mind is in harmony and peace.
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