Pankhurst on prosperity

I was planning to write a note on the 10: 10 campaign launched in Britain yesterday but Brendan O’Neill has saved me the trouble with a critique on the Guardian comment is free site.

I particularly liked the concluding quote on prosperity from Sylvia Pankhurst, the revolutionary suffragette leader, so I checked it out. It is from an article in Workers’ Dreadnought, 28 July 1923:

“Socialism means plenty for all. We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance.

“Our desire is not to make poor those who to-day are rich, in order to put the poor in the place where the rich now are. Our desire is not to pull down the present rulers to put other rulers in their places.

“We wish to abolish poverty and to provide abundance for all.

“We do not call for limitation of births, for penurious thrift, and self-denial. We call for a great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume.”

Those who assume that supporting prosperity is a free market preoccupation take note.