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Chapter Four: Workers and Manufacturers, or Cheats and Liars?
Neville: OK, I think that’s a good start. So how about those liars and cheats I mentioned before who want to be successful and happy without having to work for it? Lots of them succeed.
Donald (groping, trying to put into words his half-clear thoughts): But, look, not everyone is a cheat, and they can succeed too! People work—they do positive things—they grow crops, they build homes, they teach classes. They don’t survive by cheating.
Neville: Sure, many are honest. But to the liars and cheats, those hard-working persons are just suckers for them to victimize. Look at Bernie Madoff. His cynical attitude is, “Thank you very much for doing the work. I’ll just leech off of you.”
Donna: But the leeches can succeed only because they have victims who are not leeches. What would happen to all the crooks, the family bums, the welfare deadbeats, even the dictators and conquerors—all those who survive by theft, handouts, and plunder—if the hard-working people stop producing and also became crooks? Suppose the farmers stopped growing food, and the clothing manufacturers stopped making clothes, and architects and construction workers stopped building houses—suppose all of them turned to dishonest methods? What then? Wouldn’t the crooks all starve or freeze or die of diseases in 3rd rate hospitals?
Neville (stopped, honestly perplexed by ideas he’s never considered before): Wouldn’t that be something. I guess crooks don’t think like that. They just hope that the good guys continue to produce, so that they can keep riding the gravy train.
Donald: Yeah, they better hope. Because if all people tried to survive as they do, we’d all die young. Nobody could survive for long then.
Donna (turning to her husband): That’s a good point, isn’t it? I never really thought of it before—but it’s true. If everybody sought to survive by graft, by theft, by handouts, by dishonest conniving—and nobody worked hard to produce all the goods and services human life requires—there could be no human flourishing like we have today; only day to day survival, or slow death.
Neville: Yeah, too bad for the crooks and the freeloaders then.
Donna: So—have we decided that people must be hard working in order to even survive, never mind prosper? Otherwise, we’ll all starve or freeze—is that right?
Donald: Right. We know that being productive is a virtue—that is, working hard to produce the goods or services human life requires. And it’s also necessary for success and happiness. So that’s one way in which success and happiness depend on being moral. So, can you think of other ways?
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