It is not patriotic to share an adviser with Russian oligarchs. It is not patriotic to cite Russian propaganda at rallies. It is not patriotic to call upon Russia to intervene in an American presidential election. It is not patriotic to cultivate a relationship with Muammar Gaddafi or to say that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are superior leaders. It is not patriotic to admire foreign dictators. It is not patriotic to ask those working, taxpaying American families to finance one’s own presidential campaign, and then to spend their contributions in one’s own companies. It is not patriotic to avoid paying taxes, especially when American working families do pay. It is not patriotic to compare one’s search for sexual partners in New York with the military service in Vietnam that one has dodged. It is not patriotic to discriminate against active-duty members of the armed forces in one’s companies, or to campaign to keep disabled veterans away from one’s property. It is not patriotic to dodge the draft and to mock war heroes and their families. What is patriotism? Let us begin with what patriotism is not. To fashion of life such a petty game is unworthy of both men and gods. I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it the more difficult for us to capture the grand prize: the safety of the void. At least I will have tasted the banquet that they have spread before me on this rich, round planet, rather than recoiling from it like a toothless bunny. If the gods would tax ecstasy, then I shall pay however, I shall protest their taxes at each opportunity, and if Woden or Shiva or Buddha or that Christian fellow-what's his name?-cannot respect that, then I'll accept their wrath. I don't want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb. Instead of hiding our heads in a prayer cloth and building walls against temptation, why not get better at fulfilling desire? Salvation is for the feeble, that's what I think. If desire causes suffering, it may be because we do not desire wisely, or that we are inexpert at obtaining what we desire. No more of such vague formulas as "The Right to work," or "To each the whole result of his labour." What we proclaim is The Right to Well-Being: Well-Being for All! But nobody has the right to seize a single one of these machines and say, "This is mine if you want to use it you must pay me a tax on each of your products," any more than the feudal lord of medieval times had the right to say to the peasant, "This hill, this meadow belong to me, and you must pay me a tax on every sheaf of corn you reap, on every rick you build."Īll is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being. Here is an immense stock of tools and implements here are all those iron slaves which we call machines, which saw and plane, spin and weave for us, unmaking and remaking, working up raw matter to produce the marvels of our time. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth.Īll things are for all. Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. The means of production being the collective work of humanity, the product should be the collective property of the race. That's the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries. That's the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. The whole pie is bigger - there's more for the worker, but there's also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody's expense. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced.
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