Zen Anarchism
You tenant farmers, you who produce food, the most important thing for human beings, the one thing we cannot do without ...
Folks, try to think. Of what you produce with your sweat all year long, half is taken by a thief called the landlord; with the half that’s left, you buy sake, soy sauce, salt and manure. But on the sake, on that manure, on everything, nothing excluded, there are taxes - money that is taken by that big thief called the government. On top of that, other thieves called merchants make their own profit. That’s why folks like you tenant farmers, who don’t own your land, will never be able to avoid poverty throughout your life, no matter how hard and earnestly you work.
--Uchiyama Gudō (1908)
Folks, try to think. Of what you produce with your sweat all year long, half is taken by a thief called the landlord; with the half that’s left, you buy sake, soy sauce, salt and manure. But on the sake, on that manure, on everything, nothing excluded, there are taxes - money that is taken by that big thief called the government. On top of that, other thieves called merchants make their own profit. That’s why folks like you tenant farmers, who don’t own your land, will never be able to avoid poverty throughout your life, no matter how hard and earnestly you work.
--Uchiyama Gudō (1908)