Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Bibliographical note
- A note on the text
- News from Nowhere
- 1 Discussion and bed
- 2 A morning bath
- 3 The guest house and breakfast therein
- 4 A market by the way
- 5 Children on the road
- 6 A little shopping
- 7 Trafalgar Square
- 8 An old friend
- 9 Concerning love
- 10 Questions and answers
- 11 Concerning government
- 12 Concerning the arrangement of life
- 13 Concerning politics
- 14 How matters are managed
- 15 On the lack of incentive to labour in a communist society
- 16 Dinner in the hall of the Bloomsbury Market
- 17 How the change came
- 18 The beginning of the new life
- 19 The drive back to Hammersmith
- 20 The Hammersmith guest house again
- 21 Going up the river
- 22 Hampton Court, and a praiser of past times
- 23 An early morning by Runnymede
- 24 Up the Thames
- 25 The third day on the Thames
- 26 The Obstinate Refusers
- 27 The upper waters
- 28 The little river
- 29 A resting-place on the upper Thames
- 30 The journey's end
- 31 An old house amongst new folk
- 32 The feast's beginning – the end
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
11 - Concerning government
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Bibliographical note
- A note on the text
- News from Nowhere
- 1 Discussion and bed
- 2 A morning bath
- 3 The guest house and breakfast therein
- 4 A market by the way
- 5 Children on the road
- 6 A little shopping
- 7 Trafalgar Square
- 8 An old friend
- 9 Concerning love
- 10 Questions and answers
- 11 Concerning government
- 12 Concerning the arrangement of life
- 13 Concerning politics
- 14 How matters are managed
- 15 On the lack of incentive to labour in a communist society
- 16 Dinner in the hall of the Bloomsbury Market
- 17 How the change came
- 18 The beginning of the new life
- 19 The drive back to Hammersmith
- 20 The Hammersmith guest house again
- 21 Going up the river
- 22 Hampton Court, and a praiser of past times
- 23 An early morning by Runnymede
- 24 Up the Thames
- 25 The third day on the Thames
- 26 The Obstinate Refusers
- 27 The upper waters
- 28 The little river
- 29 A resting-place on the upper Thames
- 30 The journey's end
- 31 An old house amongst new folk
- 32 The feast's beginning – the end
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
‘Now,’ said I, ‘I have come to the point of asking questions which I suppose will be dry for you to answer and difficult for you to explain; but I have foreseen for some time past that I must ask them, will I nill I. What kind of a government have you? Has republicanism finally triumphed? or have you come to a mere dictatorship, which some persons in the nineteenth century used to prophesy as the ultimate outcome of democracy? Indeed, this last question does not seem so very unreasonable, since you have turned your Parliament House into a dung-market. Or where do you house your present Parliament?’
The old man answered my smile with a hearty laugh, and said: ‘Well, well, dung is not the worst kind of corruption; fertility may come of that, whereas mere dearth came from the other kind, of which those walls once held the great supporters. Now, dear guest, let me tell you that our present parliament would be hard to house in one place, because the whole people is our parliament.’
‘I don't understand,’ said I.
‘No, I suppose not,’ said he. ‘I must now shock you by telling you that we have no longer anything which you, a native of another planet, would call a government.’
‘I am not so much shocked as you might think,’ said I, ‘as I know something about governments. But tell me, how do you manage, and how have you come to this state of things?’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Morris: News from Nowhere , pp. 77 - 81Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995