The Root of the Problem

Because today's economic problems are essentially spiritual in origin, what we need is a new understanding of wealth guided by the spiritual principles of justice and the oneness of humankind. Today, most employers pay their employees only with wages. However, as society learns to assign a spiritual as well as material value to work, it will become possible for people and organizations to measure their incomes not only by how much money they make, but also by how much they have served humanity. This subject is also covered in another chapter.

Explaining the inadequacy of money to motivate people to work cooperatively, `Abdu'l-Bahá explained as far back as in 1912:

Now I want to tell you about the law of God. According to the divine law, employees should not be paid merely by wages. Nay, rather they should be partners in every work. The question of socialization is very difficult. It will not be solved by strikes for wages. All the governments of the world must be united, and organize an assembly, the members of which shall be elected from the parliaments and the noble ones of the nations. These must plan with wisdom and power, so that neither the capitalists suffer enormous losses, nor the laborers become needy. In the utmost moderation they should make the law, then announce to the public that the rights of the working people are to be effectively preserved; also the rights of the capitalists are to be protected. When such a general law is adopted, by the will of both sides, should a strike occur, all the governments of the world should collectively resist it. Otherwise the work will lead to much destruction, especially in Europe. Terrible things will take place   The owners of properties, mines and factories, should share their incomes with their employees, and give a fairly certain percentage of their profits to their working men, in order that the employees should receive, besides their wages, some of the general income of the factory, so that the employee may strive with his soul in the work.[16]

Gandhi also advocated rewarding good work with more than wages:

Modern political economy imagines that man has a body but no soul to be taken into account and frames its laws accordingly. How can such laws possibly apply to man in whom the soul is the predominant element?

We see how helpless it is when labourers go on a strike. The masters take one view of the matter, the operatives another; and no political economy can set them at one. Disputant after disputant vainly strives to show that the interests of the masters are not antagonistic to those of the men. In fact it does not always follow that the persons must be antagonistic because their interests are. If there is only a crust of bread in the house, and the mother and children are starving, their interests are not the same. If the mother eats it, the children want it; if the children eat it, the mother must go hungry to her work. Yet it does not follow that there is antagonism between them, that they will fight for the crust, and the mother, being strongest, will get it and eat it. Similarly it cannot be assumed that because their interests are diverse, persons must regard one another with hostility and use violence or cunning to obtain the advantage.

Even if we consider men as actuated by no other moral influences than those which affect rats or swine, it can never be shown generally either that the interests of master and labourer are alike or that they are opposed; for according to circumstances they may be either  

I have meant in the term justice to include affection--such affection as one man owes to another. All right relations between master and operative ultimately depend on this.

As an illustration, let us consider the position of domestic servants.

We will suppose that the master of a household tries only to get as much work out of his servants as he can, at the rate of wages he gives. He never allows them to be idle; feeds them as poorly and lodges them as ill as they will endure. In doing this, there is no violation on his part of what is commonly called `justice'. He agrees with the domestic for his whole time and service and takes them, the limits of hardship in treatment being fixed by the practice of other masters in the neighborhood. If the servant can get a better place, he is free to take one.

This is the politico-economical view of the case according to the doctors of that science who assert that by this procedure the greatest average of work will be obtained from the servant, and therefore the greatest benefit to the community, and through the community, to the servant himself.

That however is not so. It would be so if the servant were an engine of which the motive power was steam, magnetism, or some such agent of calculable force. But on the contrary he is an engine whose motive power is the Soul. Soul force enters into all the economist's equations without his knowledge and falsifies every one of their results. The largest quantity of work will not be done by this curious engine for pay or under pressure. It will be done when the motive force, that it to say, the will or spirit of the creature, is brought to its greatest strength by its own proper fuel, namely by the affections.[17]

One logical consequence of the spiritual principle of the oneness of humankind is that we help ourselves by helping others, but harm ourselves by harming others. Thus, we find in many of the Bahá'í writings references to a future time when people will, of their own free volition, wish to share their wealth with others. In a letter to the Central Organization for a Durable Peace, written in 1919, `Abdu'l-Bahá explained,

Among the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh is voluntary sharing of one's property with others among mankind. This voluntary sharing is greater than (legally imposed) equality, and consists in this, that one should not prefer oneself to others, but rather should sacrifice one's life and property for others. But this should not be introduced by coercion so that it becomes a law which man is compelled to follow. Nay, rather, man should voluntarily and of his own choice sacrifice his property and life for others, and spend willingly for the poor, just as is done in Persia among the Bahá'ís.[18]

Gandhi also considered voluntary sharing to be a necessary part of trusteeship:

A non-violent system of government is clearly an impossibility so long as the wide gulf between the rich and the hungry millions persists   A violent and bloody revolution is a certainty one day unless there is a voluntary abdication of riches and the power that riches give and sharing them for the common good. I adhere to my doctrine of trusteeship in spite of the ridicule that has been poured upon it. It is true that it is difficult to reach. So is non-violence difficult to attain.[19]

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