The value of work

Our hero, hard at work

Why bother to work hard, devoting years to learning a skill or trade, when instead you could go on a riot for social justice and put pressure on the government to give you a bunch of free money? Sitting indoors engaging in productive activity seems dull and tedious compared to going out on the streets to do social justice - meeting other cool people, throwing a few missiles at the police, setting buildings on fire, looting and general rioting.

​Rioting is very exciting, and as an extra bonus you get your 15 minutes of fame when they feature you on the evening news. There you are, running through the streets in your combat gear, fist in the air, weeping copious tears while demanding your justice and your reparations! Nice. Breaking windows and mounting barricades is also great for putting pressure on rich people to pay you protection-money hoping you'll go away and leave their stuff alone. 

​If the court fails to produce the verdict we demand, protestors on the street should “…Stay on the street, and we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational, we’ve got to make sure they know we mean business.”

Representative Maxine M. Waters

Mob justice does work, and it is very lucrative especially when large corporations are queueing up to pay you your reparations.

By contrast, hard work is slow and tedious. It does not yield quick returns. You don't become a celebrity. No short-cuts on the long hard slog to self-reliance. And nobody wants to bother with work when the sun is shining and it looks like a glorious day to go out and riot for your historical grievances.

For much of history many people only worked because they had no choice. It was either work, or starve. No welfare state. Root, hog or die. Slaves and servants worked because if they didn't they'd be whipped or strung up. Following emancipation in the American south many former slave-owners assumed that their slaves would just lie down and die, to be honest, because they believed that the only reason for a black person to get up and work would be if someone whipped them into it, right? Well, the freed slaves surprised everyone by choosing life, and choosing to work.

The census of 1890, the first to make racial distinctions in the returns pertaining to occupations, revealed that of the black population 10 years of age and over, 79 percent of the males and 36 percent of the females were gainfully employed.

For whites the proportions at work were smaller, the percentages being 77 for males and 14 for females.

Considering both sexes together, 58 percent of the blacks and 47 percent of the whites were gainfully occupied.

Robert Higgs, Competition and Coercion, p.40, 41.

Now we have taxes and governments to collect all the tax money from the rich and distribute it to anyone who needs it. This suggests that nobody needs to work, unless they want to.  So, why bother? After all, greedy rich people will always be there to grow the magic money tree, so you don't have to worry about the money running out (if it runs out, maybe the government can just print more? They did that in the Congo and it worked really well).

The value of work has nothing to do directly with money or earning a living, but with self-respect and dignity. All human beings are hard-wired with a need to respect themselves and to know that their lives are meaningful, that they have contributed something to this world on their journey through it. Going on the rampage may seem like an easy way to earn your self-respect, especially if you label it 'justice' and pretend that you are there to save lives and keep all our communities safe. When you get your protection-money you then pretend that it represents your 'reparations' for historical injustices that occurred 300 years before you were born.

Unfortunately everyone knows that 'social justice' is a sham, and worst of all when you look in the mirror, you know it's a sham. You end up like Javert, unable to bear a life built on lies, extortion and violence. Worst of all, you have nothing to pass on to your children but a legacy of dishonesty, scamming other people, shaking them down with demands for free money, rioting, and destroying everything in your path. This is no 'justice'. It's the greatest shame of our time.