Humanity would collapse if people were to only do that which they could recieve reward for
Can we not recall someone who has rendered us so great a service that we should be indignant if its equivalent in money were mentioned? The service may have been but a word, nothing but a word spoken at the right time, or it may have been months and years of devotion, and are we going to appraise these ‘incalculable’ services in remuneration?
‘The works of each!’ so they say. But human society would not exist for more than two consecutive generations if everyone did nothing more than that which they recieved remuneration for. The human race would soon become extinct if mothers did not sacrifice their lives to take care of their children, if people did not give continually, without demanding an equivalent reward, if people did not give most precisely when they expect no reward, as generosity without expectation for reward is intrensically rewarding.
If middle-class society is decaying, if we have got into a blind alley from which we cannot emerge without tearing down past institutions, it is precisely because we have given too much to counting. It is because we have let ourselves be influenced into giving only to receive. It is because we have aimed at turning society into a commercial company based on debit and credit.
References
- Kroptokin, Peter. (1892). The Conquest of Bread Chapter 13. The Collectivist Wages System (p. 232).