Lady Chatterley's Lover Wealth Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

"I don't. But to the extent I do own it, yes, most decidedly. The ownership of property has now become a religious question: as it has been since Jesus and St Francis. The point is not: take all thou hast and give to the poor, but use all thou hast to encourage the industry and give work to the poor. It's the only way to feed all the mouths and clothe all the bodies. Giving away all we have to the poor spells starvation for the poor just as much as for us. And universal starvation is no high aim. Even general poverty is no lovely thing. Poverty is ugly." (13.35)

No re-distribution of wealth for Clifford. He's of the teach-a-man-to-fish (or mine coal) school of thought: there's no sense in providing charity to people, but owners do have a responsibility to provide work. No word on whether that work has to be safe or include health benefits, however.

Quote #8

"I'd like to give something," she said. "But I'm not allowed. Everything is to be sold and paid for now; and all the things you mention now, Wragby and Shipley SELLS them to the people, at a good profit. Everything is sold. You don't give one heart-beat of real sympathy. And besides, who has taken away from the people their natural life and manhood, and given them this industrial horror? Who has done that?"(13.52)

Connie isn't sold on Clifford's idea of himself of a benevolent master. She's basically saying that, sure, he might have built a school for the miners' children, but it's his mines that enslaved them to poverty and ignorance in the first place.

Quote #9

"Let's live for summat else. Let's not live ter make money, neither for us-selves nor for anybody else. Now we're forced to. We're forced to make a bit for us-selves, an' a fair lot for th' bosses. Let's stop it! Bit by bit, let's stop it. We needn't rant an' rave. Bit by bit, let's drop the whole industrial life an' go back. The least little bit o' money'll do. For everybody, me an' you, bosses an' masters, even th' king. The least little bit o' money'll really do. Just make up your mind to it, an' you've got out o' th' mess." (15.85)

Mellors has the solution: just stop using money, man. This idealistic, ridiculous vision is why Lawrence is the least radical radical you'll ever read. He doesn't want to live in a utopian future; he wants to live in a utopian past.