Useless mouths

Useless Minds

Communism and other state-controlled economies have always wrestled with the problem of “useless mouths” If the state feeds, then who shall it feed? The easy answer: only those who work. Some Marxists felt that there was a reciprocal obligation to work. No work, no grub. “There can be no stronger or more pressing motive to work for the society in which all participate than this unshakable sense of communal service. But where this sense is lacking and physical disability or mental laziness engenders a shirker, then the collective pressure on that shirker, male or female, becomes severe indeed. There is as little tolerance of useless mouths in a communal society as there is in a beehive.”

BY RICHARD FERNANDEZ 7:49 PM ON MARCH 28, 202