If you don’t work, you don’t eat.
~ Saturday, May 27, 2023 Blog Post ~
I agree with the aphorism, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” I heard it first from a guest speaker from South Korea when I was in graduate school sometime in 2008 or 2009.
I agree that there is no such thing as free lunch. I also don’t support free riders or freeloaders. I’m for hardworking people who earn a living honestly and eat well. I think that’s fair.
Moreover, I like diligent people — industrious people with honor and dignity. I have high respect for them. I like that they’re hardworking even if they are not well-off for as long as they’re honest and they make honest money.
I gathered that the aphorism comes from the Bible, particularly 2 Thessalonians 3:10, and it has many versions below. I also included a Wikipedia entry about “He who does not work, neither shall he eat,” which mentioned that English soldier and explorer Captain John Smith also uttered it in the 1600s upon arriving in America.
2 THESSALONIANS 3:10
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you: that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither let him eat.
For even while we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
For while we were yet with you, we gave you this rule and charge: If anyone will not work, neither let him eat.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
In fact, when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.”
Even when we were with you we were giving you this command: “If anyone doesn’t want to work, they shouldn’t eat.”
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: if someone won’t work, he shouldn’t eat!
We also gave you this rule: If you don’t work, you don’t eat.
For also when we were with you we enjoined you this, that if any man does not like to work, neither let him eat.
For even when we were with you, we commanded this to you — that “if anyone does not want to work, neither let him eat”.
For also when we were with you, this we declared to you: that, if any man will not work, neither let him eat.
When we were with you, we gave you this rule: “Whoever will not work should not be allowed to eat.”
In fact, when we were with you, this was our command to you: If anyone does not want to work, he should not eat.
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
[L For even] When we were with you, we gave you this ·rule [instruction; command]: “Anyone who ·refuses [is not willing] to work should not eat.”
For even when we were with you, this we warned you of, that if there were any, which would not work, that he should not eat.
While we were with you, we gave you the order: “Whoever doesn’t want to work shouldn’t be allowed to eat.”
While we were with you, we used to tell you, “Whoever refuses to work is not allowed to eat.”
In fact, when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.”
When we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If anyone will not work, he will not eat.”
While we were with you, we gave this order: “If anyone doesn’t want to work, he shouldn’t eat.”
One further order we must give you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: don’t associate with the brother whose life is undisciplined, and who despises the teaching we gave him. You know well that we ourselves are your examples here, and that our lives among you were never undisciplined. We did not eat anyone’s food without paying for it. In fact we toiled and laboured night and day to avoid being the slightest expense to any of you. This was not because we had no right to ask our necessities of you, but because we wanted to set you an example. When we were actually with you we gave you this principle to work on: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” Now we hear that you have some among you living quite undisciplined lives, never doing a stroke of work, and busy only in other people’s affairs. Our order to such men, indeed our appeal by the Lord Jesus Christ, is to settle down to work and eat the food they have earned themselves.
For even when we were with you, this we declared unto you, that if anyone desires not to work neither should he eat.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
For even when we were with you, we used to command this to you: if anyone is not willing to work, neither let him eat.
For even when we were with you, we used to command this to you: that if anyone does not want to work, neither should he eat.
Even while we were still there with you, we gave you this rule: “He who does not work shall not eat.”
Don’t you remember the rule we had when we lived with you? “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” And now we’re getting reports that a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings are taking advantage of you. This must not be tolerated. We command them to get to work immediately — no excuses, no arguments — and earn their own keep. Friends, don’t slack off in doing your duty.
For when we were with you, we commanded you that if any will not work, neither shall he eat.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this charge: “If anyone is not willing to work, then he should not eat.”
While we were with you, we gave you the order: “Whoever doesn’t want to work shouldn’t be allowed to eat.”
In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.
For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
In fact, even when we were with you, we charged that anyone who was unwilling to work should not eat.
When we were with you, we gave you this rule: “Anyone who refuses to work should not eat.”
For even when we were with you, we used to give you this command: “If anyone is not willing to work, neither should he eat.”
Even when we were with you, we gave you a rule. We said, “Anyone who won’t work shouldn’t be allowed to eat.”
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’
For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.
When we were with you, we told you that if a man does not work, he should not eat.
Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.”
For when we were with you, this we warned you of: that if there were any who would not work, the same should not eat.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
And, indeed, when we were with you, we gave you this command: those who won’t work shouldn’t eat!
For even when we were with you, this we used to direct you: that if anyone will not be a po’el (worker), neither let him be an ochel (eater) [Gn 3:19].
For even when we were with you, we warned you of this; that if there were any who would not work, he should not eat.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat.
For even when we were with you, we would give you this order: if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.
This is exactly why, while with you, we commanded you: “Anyone not willing to work shouldn’t get to eat!”
For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: “If anyone is not willing to work, don’t let him eat.”
Even when we were with you, we told you this, `If any man will not work, do not let him eat.’
For also when we were among you, we commanded this thing to you [For why and when we were with you, this thing we announced, or warned, to you], that if any man will not work, neither eat he.
for even when we were with you, this we did command you, that if any one is not willing to work, neither let him eat,
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WIKIPEDIA:
He who does not work, neither shall he eat
11 languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“He who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat” — Soviet poster issued in Uzbekistan, 1920
He who does not work, neither shall he eat is an aphorism from the New Testament traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, later cited by John Smith in the early 1600s colony of Jamestown, Virginia, and by the communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin during the early 1900s Russian Revolution.
New Testament[edit]
The aphorism is found in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians 3:10, the authorship of which is traditionally assigned to Paul the Apostle (with Silvanus and Timothy), where it reads:
εἴ τις οὐ θέλει ἐργάζεσθαι μηδὲ ἐσθιέτωeí tis ou thélei ergázesthai mēdè esthiétō
that is,
If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.[1]
The Greek phrase οὐ θέλει ἐργᾰ́ζεσθαι (ou thélei ergázesthai) means “is not willing to work”. Other English translations render this as “would”[2] or “will not work”,[3] using the archaic sense of “want to, desire to” for the verb “will”.
This is a sort of a frequently used Jewish proverb,[4] “that if a man would not work, he should not eat”. Also:
“he that labours on the evening of the sabbath (or on weekdays), he shall eat on the sabbath day; and he who does not labour on the evening of the sabbath, from whence shall he eat (or what right and authority has he to eat) on the sabbath day?”[5]
Jamestown[edit]
In the spring of 1609, John Smith cited the aphorism to the colonists of Jamestown:
Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries I hope is sufficient to persuade everyone to a present correction of himself, And think not that either my pains nor the adventurers’ purses will ever maintain you in idleness and sloth…
…the greater part must be more industrious, or starve…
You must obey this now for a law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled). For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers.[6]
Soviet Union[edit]
The motto in a 1920s Soviet poster
According to Vladimir Lenin, “He who does not work shall not eat” is a necessary principle under socialism, the preliminary phase of the evolution towards communist society. The phrase appears in his 1917 work, The State and Revolution. Through this slogan Lenin explains that in socialist states only productive individuals could be allowed access to the articles of consumption.
The socialist principle, “He who does not work shall not eat”, is already realized; the other socialist principle, “An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor”, is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish “bourgeois law”, which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products. This is a “defect” according to Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. (Chapter 5, Section 3, “The First Phase of Communist Society”)
In Lenin’s writing, this was directed at the bourgeoisie, as well as “those who shirk their work”.[7][8]
The principle was enunciated in the Russian Constitution of 1918,[9] and also article twelve of the 1936 Soviet Constitution:
In the USSR work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat”.
Joseph Stalin had quoted Vladimir Lenin during the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 declaring: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”[10] This perspective is argued by economic professor Michael Ellman to have influenced official policy during the famine, with those deemed to be idlers being disfavored in aid distribution as compared to those deemed “conscientiously working collective farmers”;[10] in this vein, Olga Andriewsky states that Soviet archives indicate that aid in Ukraine was primarily distributed to preserve the collective farm system and only the most productive workers were prioritized for receiving it.[11] Criticizing Stalin, Leon Trotsky wrote that: “The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.”[12]
See also[edit]
- Critique of work
- From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
- There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch
- To each according to his contribution
- Workfare
References[edit]
- ^ 2 Thessalonians 3:10 ESV
- ^ King James Bible
- ^ American Standard Bible
- ^ Bereshit Rabba, sect. 14. fol. 13. 1. Echa Rabbati, fol. 48. 4. & Midrash Koholet, fol. 65. 4.
- ^ T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 3. 1.
- ^ Thompson, John (2007). The Journals of Captain John Smith: A Jamestown Biography. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic. p. 139. ISBN 978–1426200557.
- ^ Vladimir Lenin. “How to Organise Competition?”. Collected Works. Vol. 26. Progress Publishers. pp. 404–15.
- ^ Vladimir Lenin (22 May 1918). “Letter to the Petrograd Soviet”. On The Famine.
- ^ Article 2, Chapter 5, Point 18
- ^ Jump up to:a b Ellman, Michael (June 2007). “Stalin and the Soviet famine of 1932–33 Revisited” (PDF). Europe-Asia Studies. Routledge. 59 (4): 663–693. doi:10.1080/09668130701291899. S2CID 53655536. Archived from the original on 14 October 2007.
- ^ Andreiwsky, Olga (2015). “Towards a Decentred History: The Study of the Holodomor and Ukrainian Historiography”. East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies. 2 (1): 17. doi:10.21226/T2301N. Finally, new studies have revealed the very selective — indeed, highly politicized — nature of state assistance in Ukraine in 1932–1933. Soviet authorities, as we know, took great pains to guarantee the supply of food to the industrial workforce and to certain other categories of the population — Red Army personnel and their families, for example. As the latest research has shown, however, in the spring of 1933, famine relief itself became an ideological instrument. The aid that was provided in rural Ukraine at the height of the Famine, when much of the population was starving, was directed, first and foremost, to ‘conscientious’ collective farm workers — those who had worked the highest number of workdays. Rations, as the sources attest, were allocated in connection with spring sowing). The bulk of assistance was delivered in the form of grain seed that was ‘lent’ to collective farms (from reserves that had been seized in Ukraine) with the stipulation that it would be repaid with interest. State aid, it seems clear, was aimed at trying to salvage the collective farm system and a workforce necessary to maintain it. At the very same time, Party officials announced a campaign to root out ‘enemy elements of all kinds who sought to exploit the food problems for their own counter-revolutionary purposes, spreading rumours about the famine and various ‘horrors’. Famine relief, in this way, became yet another way to determine who lived and who died.
- ^ Leon Trotsky (1936) The Revolution Betrayed Chapter 11: Whither the Soviet Union?
References:
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Thessalonians%203:10
https://biblehub.com/2_thessalonians/3-10.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat
