Report: Henry David Thoreau - "On Civil Disobedience"

Henry David Thoreau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/
http://www.library.ucsb.edu/thoreau/thoreau_faq.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0503e.asp
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/71/71.txt



was born July 1817, died 1862
American of French descent, Concord Mass.

studied at Harvard, declined his Master's degree diploma (which was meaningless)
traditional professions bored him
spent time as a ink maker

Interests were in natural history, ecology, personal experience, symbolic meaning,
proponent for simple living

civil disobedience - refused to pay poll taxes, opposed the Mexican-American war, beleived both would extend slavery
his aunt paid his taxes


Civil Disobedience
essay, published 1849
Argument for individual resistance to civil gov't and moral opposition to an unjust state gov't should not override conscience

Civil disobedience - resistance to civil government

gov't is a machine, when it produces injustice it must be stopped by people

became "Civil Disobedience" in 1866
power to state or individual? INDIVIDUAL




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Karl Marx
'Communist Manifesto'

born May 1818 German (Prussian)
studied in Berlin
influenced by Voltaire and Immanuel Kant
was lower middle class most of his life
died of bronchitis in 1883


Communist Manifesto
published in 1848


capitalism replaced feudalism; communism should replace capitalism
stateless, classless society
capitalism is a contradiction, creates tensions that lead to its collapse
ideas hit the Russian Bolsheviks in 1917

1843 "on the jewish question"
argued against a statement saying religion is basically what keeps the Jews unemancipated

spiritual and political freedom still bound by economic slavery


state or individual power - state





The section ends by outlining a set of short-term demands:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.[12]