at right did not exist. And I cannot refrain from doing the
same thing now in reference to the present form of slavery,--exercising
my right to the labor of others as little as possible, i.e., hiring and
purchasing as little as possible.

The root of every slavery is the use of the labor of others; and hence,
the compelling others to it is founded indifferently on my right to the
slave, or on my possession of money which is indispensable to him. If I
really do not approve, and if I regard as an evil, the employment of the
labor of others, then I shall use neither my right nor my money for that
purpose; I shall not compel others to toil for me, but I shall endeavor
to free them from the labor which they have performed for me, as far as
possible, either by doing without this labor or by performing it for
myself.

And this very simple and unavoidable deduction enters into all the
details of my life, effects a total change in it, and at one blow
releases me from those moral sufferings which I have undergone at the
sight of the sufferings and the vice of the people, and instantly
annihilates all three causes of my inability to aid the poor, which I had
encountered while seeking the cause of my lack of success.

The first cause was the herding of the people in towns, and the
absorption there of the wealth of the country. All that a man needs is
to understand how every hiring or purchase is a handle to extortion from
the poor, and that therefore he must abstain from them, and must try to
fulfil his own requirements; and not a single man will then quit the
country, where all wants can be satisfied without money, for the city,
where it is necessary to buy every thing: and in the country he will be
in a position to help the needy, as has been my own experience and the
experience of every one else.

The second cause is the estrangement of the rich from the poor. A man
needs but to refrain from buying, from hiring, and, disdaining no sort of
work, to satisfy his requirements himself, and the former estrangement
will immediately be annihilated, and the man, having rejected luxury and
the services of others, will amalgamate with the mass of the working
people, and, standing shoulder to shoulder with the working people, he
can help them.

The third cause was shame, founded on a consciousness of immorality in my
owning that money with which I desired to help people. All that is
required is: to understand the significance of m