Green Passages

For the benefit of potential research in the future, I decided to compile some of the most interesting quotes from The Green Book here.

On Democracy

“Political struggle that results in the victory of a candidate with, for example, 51 per cent of the votes leads to a dictatorial governing body in the guise of a false democracy, since 49 per cent of the electorate is ruled by an instrument of government they did not vote for, but which has been imposed upon them. Such is dictatorship.” (7-8)

“Moreover, since the system of elected parliaments is based on propaganda to win votes, it is a demagogic system in the real sense of the word. Votes can be bought and falsified. Poor people are unable to compete in the election campaigns, and the result is that only the rich get elected. Assemblies constituted by appointment or hereditary succession do not fall under any form of democracy.” (11)

On Laws

“The natural law of any society is grounded in either tradition (custom) or religion. Any other attempt to draft law outside these two sources is invalid and illogical. Constitutions cannot be considered the law of society. A constitution is fundamentally a (man-made) positive law, and lacks the natural source from which it must derive its justification.” (27)

“Religion contains tradition, and tradition is an expression of the natural life of the people. Therefore, religion is an affirmation of natural laws which are discerned therein. Laws which are not premised on religion and tradition are merely an invention by man to be used against his fellow man. Consequently, such laws are invalid because they do not emanate from the natural source of tradition and religion.” (30)

On Wages and Socialism

“Attempts that were aimed at wages were contrived and reformative, and have failed to provide a solution. They were more of a charity than a recognition of the rights of the workers. Why do workers receive wages? Because they carry out a production process for the benefit of others who hire them to produce a certain product. In this case, they do not consume what they produce; rather, they are compelled to concede their product for wages. Hence, the sound rule: those who produce consume. Wage-earners, however improved their wages may be, are a type of slave. Wage-earners are but slaves to the masters who hire them. They are temporary slaves, and their slavery lasts as long as they work for wages from employers, be they individuals or the state. The workers’ relationship to the owner or the productive establishment, and to their own interests, is similar under all prevailing conditions in the world today, regardless of whether ownership is right or left. Even publicly-owned establishments give workers wages as well as other social benefits, similar to the charity endowed by the rich owners of economic establishments upon those who work for them.” (42)

“Any surplus beyond the satisfaction of needs should ultimately belong to all members of society. Individuals, however, have a right to effect savings from the share allocated to their own needs since it is the amassing of wealth beyond the satisfaction of one’s needs that is an encroachment upon public wealth.” (61)

On Nationalism and Liberalism

“Nations whose nationalism is destroyed are subject to ruin. Minorities, which are one of the main political problems in the world, are the outcome. They are nations whose nationalism has been destroyed and which are thus torn apart. The social factor is, therefore, a factor of life – a factor of survival. It is the nation’s innate momentum for survival. Nationalism in the human world and group instinct in the animal kingdom are like gravity in the domain of material and celestial bodies. If the sun lost its gravity, its gasses would explode and its unity would no longer exist. Accordingly, unity is the basis for survival. The factor of unity in any group is a social factor; in man’s case, nationalism. For this reason, human communities struggle for their own national unity, the basis for their survival. The national factor, the social bond, works automatically to impel a nation towards survival, in the same way that the gravity of an object works to keep it as one mass surrounding its centre.” (70-71)

“To disregard the national bond of human communities and to establish a political system in contradiction to social reality establishes only a temporary structure which will be destroyed by the movement of the social factor of those groups, i.e., the national integrity and dynamism of each community.” (83)

On Women and Modernity

“Deliberate interventions against conception form an alternative to human life. In addition to that, there exists partial deliberate intervention against conception, as well as against breastfeeding. All these are links in a chain of actions in contradiction to natural life, which is tantamount to murder. For a woman to kill herself in order not to conceive, deliver and breast-feed is within the realm of deliberate, artificial interventions, in contradiction with the nature of life epitomized by marriage, conception, breast-feeding, and maternity. They differ only in degree. To dispense with the natural role of woman in maternity – nurseries replacing mothers – is a start in dispensing with the human society and transforming it into a merely biological society with an artificial way of life. To separate children from their mothers and to cram them into nurseries is a process by which they are transformed into something very close to chicks, for nurseries are similar to poultry farms into which chicks are crammed after they are hatched. Nothing else would be as appropriate and suitable to the human being and his dignity as natural motherhood. Children should be raised by their mothers in a family where the true principles of motherhood, fatherhood and comradeship of brothers and sisters prevail, and not in an institution resembling a poultry farm. Even poultry, like the rest of the members of the animal kingdom, need motherhood as a natural phase. Therefore, breeding them on farms similar to nurseries is against their natural growth. Even their meat is artificial rather than natural. Meat from mechanized poultry farms is not tasty and may not be nourishing because the chicks are not naturally bred and are not raised in the protective shade of natural motherhood. The meat of wild birds is more tasty and nourishing because they are naturally fed. As for children who have neither family nor shelter, society is their guardian, and only for them, should society establish nurseries and related institutions. It is better for them to be taken care of by society rather than by individuals who are not their parents. If a test were carried out to discover whether the natural propensity of the child is towards its mother or the nursery. the child would opt for the mother and not the nursery. Since the natural tendency of a child is towards its mother, she is the natural and proper person to give the child the protection of nursing. Sending a child to a nursery in place of its mother is coercive and oppressive and against its free and natural tendencies.” (87-88)

“All societies today look upon women as little more than commodities. The East regards her as a commodity to be bought and
sold, while the West does not recognize her femininity. Driving woman to do man’s work is a flagrant aggression against the femininity with which she is naturally provided and which defines a natural purpose essential to life. Man’s work obscures woman’s beautiful features which are created for female roles. They are like blossoms which are created to attract pollen and to produce seeds. If we did away with the blossoms, the role of plants in life would come to an end. The natural embellishment in butterflies and birds and animal females exists to that natural vital purpose. If a woman carries out men’s work, she risks being transformed into a man, abandoning her role and her beauty. A woman has full right to live without being forced to change into a man and to give up her femininity.” (93)