"Some ideals are subversive and cannot well be realised except by war or revolution. The most important of these is at present economic justice. Political justice had its day in industrialised parts of the world and is still to be sought in the unindustrialised parts, but economic justice is still a painfully sought. It requires a world-wide economic revolution if it is to be brought about. I do not see how it is to be achieved without bloodshed or how the world can continue patiently without it. It is true that steps are being taken in some countries, particularly by limiting the power of inheritance, but these are as yet very partial and very limited. Consider the vast areas of the world where the young have little or no education and where adults have not the capacity to realise elementary conditions of comfort. These inequalities rouse envy and are potential causes of great disorder. Whether the world will be able by peaceful means to raise the conditions of the poorer nations is, to my mind, very doubtful, and is likely to prove the most difficult governmental problem of coming centuries."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. 14: Return to England, p. 515
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Autobiography_of_Bertrand_Russell
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
1967 – 1969
52 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell →
Related Quotes
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowled…"
"At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. This was one of the great events of my life, as da…"
"At the age of eighteen ... I read Mill's Autobiography, where I found a sentence to the effect that his father taught…"
"I remember the precise moment, one day in 1894, as I was walking along Trinity Lane, when I saw in a flash (or though…"
"I once devised a test question which I put to many people to discover whether they were pessimists. The question was:…"
"Keynes's intellect was the sharpest and clearest that I have ever known. When I argued with him, I felt that I took m…"
"I remember a cold, bright day in early spring [1895] when I walked by myself in the Tiergarten, and made projects of …"
"Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradual…"
"Suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath me, and I found myself in quite another region. Within five minutes I …"
"Through the long years  I sought peace, I found ecstasy, I found anguish,  I found madness, I found lonelin…"