Go-Getters vs. Go-Givers

Two Bourgeois

The bourgeois capitalist
believes in rugged individualism;
The Bolshevist Socialist
believes in rugged collectivism.
There is no difference
between the rugged individualism
of bourgeois capitalism
and the rugged collectivism
of Bolshevist Socialism.
The bourgeois capitalist
tries to keep
what he has,
and tries to get
what the other fellow has.
The Bolshevist Socialist
tries to get
what the bourgeois capitalist has.
The Bolshevist Socialist
is the son
of the bourgeois capitalist,
and the son
is too much
like his father.
All the sins of the father
are found in the son.

Bourgeois Capitalist

The bourgeois capitalist
calls himself conservative
but has failed to conserve
our cultural tradition.
He thinks that culture
is related to leisure.
He does not think that culture
is related to cult
and to cultivation.
He believes in power,
and that money
is the way to power.
He believes that money
can buy everything,
whether it be labor or brains.
But as the poet Emerson says,
“People have only
the power we give them.”
When people will cease
selling their labor power
or their brain power
to the bourgeois capitalist,
the bourgeois capitalist
will cease being
a gentleman of leisure
and begin being
a cultured gentleman.

Bolshevist Socialist

The Bolshevist Socialist
is the spiritual son
of the bourgeois capitalist;
he credits bourgeois capitalism
with an historic mission
and fails to condemn it
on general principles.
The bourgeois Socialist
does not believe
in the profit system,
but he does believe
in the wage system.
The bourgeois capitalist
and his spiritual son,
the Bolshevist Socialist,
believe in getting
all they can get
and not in giving
all they can give.
The bourgeois capitalist
and his spiritual son,
the Bolshevist Socialist,
are go-getters,
not go-givers.

The Personalist Communitarian

A personalist
is a go-giver,
not a go-getter.
He tries to give
what he has,
and does not
try to get
what the other fellow has.
He tries to be good
by doing good
to the other fellow.
He is altro-centered,
not self-centered.
He has a social doctrine
of the common good.
He spreads the social doctrine
of the common good
through words and deeds.
He speaks through deeds
as well as words,
for he knows that deeds
speak louder than words.
Through words and deeds
he brings into existence
a common unity,
the common unity
of a community.

Community Spirit

Communitarianism
is the rediscovery
and the exemplification
of what the Kiwanis
and Rotarians
used to talk about,
namely,
the community spirit.
The community spirit
is no more common
than common sense
is common.
Everybody knows
that common sense
is not common,
but nobody believes
that common sense
should not be common.
The community spirit
should be common.
as well as common sense
should be common.
If common sense was common,
Bolshevist Socialists
would not be
rugged collectivists;
they would be
Communitarian personalists.

Franciscans and Jesuits

Franciscans and Jesuits
believe in the community spirit
just as much
as Kiwanis and Rotarians.
While Kiwanis and Rotarians
used to talk about the common spirit,
Franciscans and Jesuits
did something about it.
Kiwanis and Rotarians
used to talk
about service
but never forgot
profitable service.
Franciscans and Jesuits
may not say much
about service,
but continue to render
unprofitable service.
Franciscans and Jesuits
believe in the responsibility
of private property
but they believe also
in the practicality
of voluntary poverty.

Counsels of the Gospel

Someone said
that The Catholic Worker
is taking monasticism
out of the monasteries.
The Counsels of the Gospel
are for everybody,
not only for monks.
Franciscans and Jesuits
are not monks.
Franciscans are Friars,
and the world is their monastery.
Jesuits are the storm troops
of the Catholic Church,
and ready to be sent
where the Holy Father
wishes to send them.
The Counsels of the Gospel
are for everybody,
and if everybody
tried to live up to it
we would bring order
out of chaos,
and Chesterton would not
have said
that the Christian ideal
has been left untried.