To continue in poverty for any long period means in the end the loss of the power of doing work, and to be unable to work means in the end pauperism. - Robert Hunter

Other causes contributed to Tolstoy's failure, but the most important of all the causes was this unmitigated individualism, which not only rendered impossible cooperation with other men, but even made the evolution of human society an obstacle which had to be overcome. ...western progress is in nearly every manner socializing life; and in general the social and economic tendencies in the West seemed to Tolstoy to be fighting against his most cherished ideals. ...He was living in a transitional age and watching Russia change from a peasant and handicraft society into an industrial regime based upon steam power and electricity About him multitudes of peasants were leaving the land to crowd into the factories.

The fundamental thing in all this is that every workman who is expected by society to remain independent of public relief and capable of self-support must be guaranteed, in so far as that is possible, an opportunity for obtaining those necessaries essential to physical efficiency. Such a standard is the basis of almost everything; for, unless men can retain their physical efficiency, they must degenerate.

He [Tolstoy] did not believe in the political action advocated by the socialist party. He thought it futile to change the personnel of the Government, and it appeared to him that the making of new laws is an absurdity which could effect no change in conditions.