THE NEED TO PRODUCE
The universe or the world can be thought of as a playing field or a game board.
The players are individuals, or people, or spiritual beings.
A person is actually a spiritual being plus a body.
The body requires a lot of maintenance. This is true, even if you do not believe there is any such thing as a spiritual being.
If a man wants to have a wife and children (or if a woman wants a husband and children), then the burden of maintenance is substantially greater. You have to provide not only for yourself, but also for your family.
So there is a substantial cost just in being alive. There are living expenses, even if you live very cheaply.
Thus, unless someone is supporting you, you have to work, even just to get by at a minimum level.
It is important to distinguish between “work” and “production”. “Work” means you are doing something. “Production” means you are creating “products”, which have value to someone else. They have “exchange value”. They have a “market price”. You can trade or exchange them with someone else for money or something else of value that you want.
TWO ATTITUDES TOWARD SUPPORTING ONESELF
The activity of working and producing enough so that one can pay one’s own expenses in life, possibly including the expenses of having a family, is called “supporting oneself”.
There are two possible attitudes toward supporting oneself. One is the idea that one should support oneself and pay one’s own expenses in life.
The other is the idea that work is unpleasant and it is better to live off the work and production of others, one way or another.
If the first idea is widespread in the population, then people will live in harmony. Each person is trying to produce things of value to others. There will be peace and prosperity and happiness.
If the second idea is widespread in the population, then people will live in conflict. Each person is trying to steal what belongs to others. There will be war and poverty and suffering.
Often the second idea, that I should not have to support myself, is justified by the idea of vengeance. “I have been exploited by rich people.”. “There is so much wealth around, if I take some, no one will miss it.”. “Rich people are all crooks anyway. They got rich by stealing. So I should get some of that wealth for myself.”.
But this idea of vengeance is a secondary idea which is itself based on the primary idea of exchange. The general pattern of any idea of vengeance is that “they” stole it from me, so I am just stealing it back. Thus I am correcting the exchange. I should have gotten it, but I didn’t, so I am correcting that by stealing what I should have gotten in the first place. I am the victim, and I am correcting this original wrong action against me. Sometimes it is a class identity. “They” stole it from people like me. So I, as a representative of my class of victims, am stealing it back, and thereby I am correcting this original wrong action against my class.
Thus even the idea of stealing as an act of vengeance validates and confirms the more basic truth that the right way to do things is by voluntary exchange, where two parties both agree voluntarily to exchange things which they own.
THE SPIRITUAL DEGRADATION OF NON-PRODUCTION
The idea that others should support one is basically criminal, in that one tries to live by taking what belongs to others. This leads to hunger and death. But worse than that, it leads to spiritual decay and degradation. The body gets hungry and dies. But the spiritual being suffers in other ways. The person loses his self-respect, because he is not producing anything. He loses his friends, because he is trying to steal from them. Other people are not potential friends, but potential victims to be stolen from. This leads to a very dark spiritual condition.
FREEDOM VERSUS SLAVERY
The first idea is that one should support oneself.
The second idea is that others should support one.
Christianity strongly supports the first idea.
Communism strongly supports the second idea.
If everyone supports himself, then everyone can live in harmony without conflict. All can be free.
If everyone wants to be supported, then everyone is trying to take from others, and to tell others what to do, whether they like it or not. Thus everyone is trying to enslave others. Thus we get a slave state.
One hears much talk of “ideology”, with big words for different “ideologies”. But the simplicity is freedom versus slavery. Is man going to be free or not? Is man going to do what he decides to do? Or is man going to do what he is ordered to do by others, whether he likes it or not?
Different “ideologies” to a very large degree are just different excuses for why it is OK for the rulers to tell the workers what to do, whether they like it or not.
Communism is materialistic. Communism believes that there is no spiritual being. A person is only his body. And the body just needs to be fed. So Communists believe that if everyone is fed, then everyone is happy, even if they are slaves.
This is very false. The body needs to be fed. The spiritual being needs to be free. The spiritual being needs Liberty. Without Liberty, the spiritual being dies, slowly and painfully.
RIGHTS AND MORALITY
The idea that one should support oneself is the same as the idea that one should not kill or steal. Killing and stealing are what one does to get others to support oneself.
These ideas are the same as the Right to Life and the Right to Property.
Saying “People have the Right to Life.” is the same as saying “Thou shalt not kill.”.
Saying “People have the Right to Property.” is the same as saying “Thou shalt not steal.”.
MANAGERS PRODUCE A LOT
Managers are people who have the ability to organize others into a productive team which gets a lot of production done. This is a very valuable skill. Thus managers are often highly paid. This is very right and proper if they really are causing an organization to produce a great deal.
There are also “managers” and “businessmen” who get rich by stealing a lot, one way or another. This in no way changes the fact that real managers are very valuable. But it is important not to confuse a real manager with a high level crook. It is not the same thing at all. High level crooks deserve to be shot. A real manager is a very valuable person who deserves his high pay.
According to Communism, people who have money have stolen it, so they all deserve to be shot. Accordingly, Communists routinely shoot all the managers. And that makes everybody poor, because nobody knows how to get any production done after all the managers get shot.
Communists think anyone with money must have stolen it, because their own moral code is that other people should support them. The idea of becoming prosperous by producing and then exchanging with others does not exist for Communists. So naturally they think all property is stolen property.
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