Born Again

<p><SPAN name="chapter13" id="chapter13">CHAPTER XIII</SPAN></p> <p>"At the present time," proceeded Arletta, "the earth resembles a huge table over-loaded with good things and surrounded by a pack of gluttons each striving to secure the largest portion. And in this piggish scramble the strong obtain more and the weak less than is needed while enough is wasted to amply supply the whole. The best forces of the participants, which should be utilized for other purposes are also lost in the ravenous struggle, for it requires more power to retain than obtain these things.</p> <p>"The same avaricious principal--individual accumulation--is the foundation of every government in the world today, and consequently all of your social systems are being run upside down. Your people spend their time and strength in looking for remedies instead of stopping the source from which all evils flow. Corruption is the result of a diseased root and as long as that remains, iniquities will continue to multiply. Extirpate the cause, however, and sin will depart like magic.</p> <p>"The system which allows the individual to acquire personal wealth is the direct cause for nearly every evil in existence. There is no remedy for a wrong unless you eradicate it entirely, and just as long as a nation clings to the pernicious plan which permits separate persons to store up the products of the earth for private uses, just so long will selfishness be the characteristic feature of the people, and all kinds of criminals will be bred from the material which otherwise would prove very useful to a unified world. According to present methods success is based upon what each individual accumulates and not what mankind is capable of producing.</p> <p>"The foundation of existence is effort, without which the inhabitants of the world would perish. United exertion produces better results and with less toil than competitive efforts. With united labor in force, every living being must work, for he who consumes and does not produce is a thief. If all the inhabitants of the world combined their labors on the most economic basis, there would be enough comforts for all created by one-tenth of the power expended at the present time. Each person would add his mite to the whole, and in return would receive as much as anyone else. All worthless occupations would be done away with, and the power thereof directed into useful channels. Labor would rule the world instead of money. For of what good would be all the money on earth if there was no labor to produce the necessities of life? At present there exists but one honest toiler whose labors enrich the world, to ten schemers who spend their time plotting to secure the results of his work; and these parasites actually confiscate the largest portion of that which is produced. The schemers feast and govern, while the laborers fast and are governed. Can you imagine more unnatural conditions than one class of beings producing all the comforts and receiving none in return?</p> <p>"With the abolition of the noxious system of individual accumulation, money would have no value and all the evils arising therefrom would cease. Take away the opportunity of the individual to accumulate wealth for himself, and you remove the temptation for fraud, theft and numerous other crimes, for there is then no incentive left for them. Expel the motive and selfishness will disappear, and each mortal give his best efforts toward perfecting himself morally, mentally and physically for the good he may render the world.</p> <p>"Teach the child that it will not have to worry over the future; that it will not have to lie, cheat, steal, murder or take any advantage of its fellow beings in order to receive its share of the good things of life; explain to it that the real incentive is to give its best services toward increasing the general production of the earth, that all mankind may enjoy the sweets thereof together in peace and harmony; impress upon its young mind, that he who works in excess of others for the good of mankind, lives the noblest life and receives the highest esteem of his fellow beings and the blessed approbation of his own soul, and that child, reaching maturity, will be a thousand times more useful to himself and humanity than he who has been taught to hoard up riches for his own special purposes.</p> <p>"Individual accumulation is responsible for crime; crime necessitates laws; laws breed tyranny.</p> <p>"Abolish individualism, and crime, tyranny and nine-tenths of your superfluous laws will be exterminated.</p> <p>"A few well-defined and just laws properly enforced are sufficient to successfully operate the governmental machinery of the human race according to Natural Law."</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />