Socialist Landlord Quotes

If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle., unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.

Surprising as it may seem today, classical ideas of creating a free market were to be achieved by “socialist” reforms. Their common aim was to protect populations from having to pay prices that included a non-labor rent or financial tax to pay landlords and natural resource owners, monopolists and bondholders. The vested interests railed against public regulation and taxation along these lines. They opposed public ownership or even the taxation of land, natural monopolies and banking. They wanted to collect rent and interest, not make land, banking and infrastructure monopolies public in character.

Democracy?’ said the landlord. ‘Democracy’s finished. It’s a dead duck. I look at it this way. I was a socialist. Now I run a pub. I’m a conservative. Why? Self-interest. What sort of a bloody system’s that? No, I’d abolish democracy tomorrow if it was me.’ ‘How?’ said Reggie. ‘Referendum,’ said the landlord.