There is no reason
why a man who is willing to work should not be able
to work and to receive the
full value of his work. There is equally no
reason why a man who can but
will not work should not receive the full
value of his services to the
community. He should most certainly be
permitted to take away from
the community an equivalent of what he
contributes to it. If he
contributes nothing he should take away
nothing. He should have the
freedom of starvation. We are not getting
anywhere when we insist that
every man ought to have more than he
deserves to have--just because
some do get more than they deserve to
have.
The producer depends for his
prosperity upon serving the people. He may
get by for a while serving
himself, but if he does, it will be purely
accidental, and when the
people wake up to the fact that they are not
being served, the end of that
producer is in sight.
Money comes naturally as the
result of service. And it is absolutely
necessary to have money. But
we do not want to forget that the end of
money is not ease but the
opportunity to perform more service. In my
mind nothing is more abhorrent
than a life of ease. None of us has any
right to ease. There is no
place in civilization for the idler. Any
scheme looking to abolishing
money is only making affairs more complex,
for we must have a measure.
That our present system of money is a
satisfactory basis for
exchange is a matter of grave doubt. That is a
question which I shall talk of
in a subsequent chapter. The gist of my
objection to the present
monetary system is that it tends to become a
thing of itself and to block
instead of facilitate production.