3.3 Work and Effort
The Necessity of Labor
Labor is a law of nature and, as such, a necessity in itself. Because civilization increases both people’s needs and their enjoyments, it also obliges them to work more.
Labor does not consist only of material occupations. The spirit labors as much as the body. Every useful occupation is labor.
Labor has been imposed on humankind as a consequence of its corporeal nature. It is a means of expiation and, at the same time, a means of perfecting intelligence. Without labor, human beings would remain in intellectual infancy. Thus, they owe their food, safety, and well-being to their own labor and activity. God has granted greater intelligence to some in order to compensate for physical weakness, but labor is involved nonetheless.
Nature itself provides for all the needs of animals because everything in nature labors. Animals labor as humans do, but their work, like their intelligence, is limited to self-preservation. That is why labor does not lead to progress among them, whereas among human beings it has a twofold objective: the preservation of the body and the development of thought. The latter is also a necessity and raises them above themselves. When it is said that the labor of animals is limited to self-preservation, this refers to the objective toward which their labor is directed. Yet while devoted entirely to providing for physical needs, they also unknowingly act as agents collaborating in the designs of the Creator. Their labor plays no less a part in the final objective of nature, although its immediate result is often not seen.
On more highly evolved worlds, human beings are subject to the same necessity of labor, but the nature of that labor is relative to the nature of their needs. The fewer the material needs, the less material the labor. Yet human beings on such worlds do not remain inactive or useless; idleness would be a torment rather than a benefit.
Those who possess enough assets to ensure their welfare may be exempt from physical labor, but not from the obligation to make themselves useful according to their means and to perfect both their own intelligence and that of others. This too is labor. If those to whom God has granted enough to ensure their welfare are not required to eat their bread by the sweat of their brow, then their obligation to be useful to their fellow creatures is all the greater. It is a portion received in advance, allowing more free time to do good.
There are some who are incapable of working at anything at all and whose existence seems to serve no purpose. But God is just and condemns only those who intentionally live a useless life by depending on the work of others. God desires all to make themselves useful according to their faculties.
The law of nature imposes on children the obligation to work for their parents, just as parents must work for their children. That is why God has made filial love and parental love natural sentiments, so that through this mutual love the members of the same family may be led to help one another. This is often not recognized in present-day society.
The Limit of Labor and Rest
Rest is a law of nature. It serves to restore the strength of the body, and it is also needed to give greater freedom to the intelligence, which must rise above matter.
The limit of labor is the limit of one’s strength. In this regard, however, God leaves people free to determine that limit for themselves.
Those who abuse their authority by imposing too much work on their subordinates commit one of the gravest wrongs. All who hold the power of command are responsible for any excessive labor they impose, because in doing so they transgress the law of God.
Human beings have the right to retire in old age. No one is required to labor beyond their ability.
If older people must earn a living but cannot, the strong should work for the weak. In the absence of a family, society should replace it. That is the law of charity.
It is not enough to tell people that they must work; it is also necessary that those who make their living by labor be able to find employment. Yet this does not always happen. Whenever the lack of available work becomes widespread, it takes on the proportions of a calamity, much like a famine. Economic science seeks a remedy in balancing production and consumption, but that balance, even if it can be achieved, will always pass through cycles, and during such periods workers must still make a living.
There is an element that has not been sufficiently considered, but without which economic science is nothing more than theory: education. Not intellectual education, but moral education; not moral education through books, but moral education consisting in the art of forming character; moral education that creates habits, because education is the sum of acquired habits. When one considers the mass of individuals who are daily thrown into the torrent of the population without principles, without restraints, and handed over to their own instincts, the disastrous consequences are no surprise.
When the art of education is recognized, understood, and practiced, all individuals throughout the world will develop habits of order and forethought for themselves and for those who depend on them. They will respect what is worthy of respect, and they will cultivate habits that will enable them to endure unavoidable hardship with less suffering. Disorder and lack of foresight are two sores that only a sound education can heal. That is the starting point, the true element of well-being, and the guarantee of security for all.