A very useful and interesting, but rather difficult, science has grown up to explain the production, distribution, and use of wealth.  It is called the science of economics.  Of all the divisions of this science, that relating to the distribution of wealth is the most perplexing.  It is the inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the sense of injustice produced by these inequalities, and sometimes a failure to understand what a fair distribution is, that have caused all the labor disputes referred to in Chapter VII (p. 71), and the discontent sometimes felt by farmers and other producers in regard to the prices of their products.

Have you ever heard any one say, “The world owes me a living”?  Is this a true statement?  If so, in what sense do you think it is true?

Which do you think is the truer statement:  “I have a right to a living,” or “I have a right to earn a living”?  Discuss the difference.

A thief has been known to say, “I was brought into the world without my own consent; therefore the world owes me a living, and I owe the world nothing.”  Is this good argument?  Did the people upon whom he depends for a living have any more to say about their being brought into the world than he had?

What things are you using to-day that were not provided for you by others?

If a stranger should come to your community to-day to live, what are some of the things that he would find already provided by the community for his use in making a living?

Name five important inventions and state what they have done for you.

Would you say that the world owes Thomas A. Edison and Luther Burbank a living?  Why?

How are you indebted for your living to the pioneers who settled your state? to Robert Fulton? to the men who built the first transcontinental railroad?

Can you think of some way in which your family is indebted for its living to the British nation? to France? to ancient Greece? to the Phoenicians? to the people of Brazil?

Which is the greater, the debt of your family to the world or the debt of the world to your family?

What is a “parasite”?  Could this term be appropriately applied to any of the people referred to in the last few paragraphs of the text above?

GOVERNMENT INTERESTED IN PRODUCTION

Each citizen has a right to feel that the government is interested in his individual prosperity and happiness; and it is, for unhappy and discontented citizens are seldom good citizens.  But the government represents community as a whole, and has the interest of the community as a whole in its keeping rather than the interest of particular individuals.  Its interest is primarily in what each citizen produces, for it is upon this that the strength. of the nation depends.

THE “NATIONAL SERVICE ARMY” OF PRODUCERS