Working your way to wealth

The law of the harvest cannot be overlooked as we consider sound economic principles.  One must plant before one may harvest.  Work is the key to production and wealth.  There is no food to eat, no clothes to wear, and no house for shelter without someone working to produce these necessities.  Even the luxuries available in our society would not exist were it not for the labor ot someone.

In my last post, I discussed the importance of saving as a way to wealth.  Without work, there would be nothing to save.  To better understand this principle, let's imagine a world without money.  A world without banks, loans, credit or any financial services.  All we have are the goods and services provided by working people.  In this world, as in the world we actually live in, none of the things we enjoy each day exists without someone producing it.  Seeds must be planted, watered and cultured to produce the food we eat.  Cotton must be grown, harvested and turned into thread to produce the cotton clothes that we wear.  The elements of the earth must be dug up, refined and molded to have cars, planes and trains.  The buildings we sleep in, work in, and worship in had to be built from materials produced and assembled.  A tremendous amount of effort goes into building bridges to cross rivers, roads to transport goods, and airports to launch planes.  Mankind would not have put foot on the moon without the efforts of thousands of people working in concert to produce a desired outcome.

All that we have to enjoy comes from work to produce it.  Wealth consists of producing these goods and services quite independently of the money we use as we barter and trade.  More money, in and of itself, does not produce wealth.  As a nation, we must promote work as the means to prosperity.  We cannot expect that our nation will become richer by simply redistributing what already exists--we must continue to work and produce the goods and services we desire.  We need to help everyone understand that our labor is required to increase our wealth.  Every able person should be encouraged to contribute to increasing the wealth of our nation.