QUOTE OF THE DAY: JOHN MILTON ON TYRANNY

From the somewhat-anti-capitalist[1] John Milton, on the psychology of an enslaved people:

Reason in man obscur’d, or not obey’d,

Immediately inordinate desires

And upstart passions catch the government[2]

From reason, and to servitude reduce

Man till then free. Therefore, since he permits

Within himself unworthy powers to reign

Over free reason, God in judgment just

Subjects him from without to violent lords;

Who oft as undeservedly enthrall

His outward freedom: tyranny must be,

Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.

― from ‘Paradise lost,’ Book XII, 86-96

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[1] Who, according to Marxist academic David Hawkes, saw the market as idolatrous. Milton, John. Paradise lost. Barnes & Noble Classics, New York. 2004.

[2] In the sense of sound mind ‘governing’ action, not the coercive institution