The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest / The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years

by Unknown

Concerning Land

By Solon

(Greek lawgiver, B.C. 639-559)

The mortgage stones that covered her, by me

Removed, the land that was a slave is free.

Deuteronomy

(Hebrew, B.C. 700?)

These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.... At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbor shall release it, he shall not exact it of his neighbor, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord’s release.

Leviticus

(Hebrew law-book, B.C. 700?)

And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying: ... “The land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.”

(From, “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality”)

By Jean Jacques Rousseau

(French novelist and philosopher, 1712-1778; father of the French Revolution)

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”