24 - Parasites

Summary

Anyone who disturbs the public peace, who does not obey the laws which are the conditions under which men abide with each other and defend themselves, must be ejected from society – in other words, he must be banished. This is the reason why wise states will not endure, in the midst of effort and industriousness, that sort of political parasitism which is confused by stern moralists with the idleness of wealth accumulated by hard work. This latter is a necessary idleness and useful insofar as society expands and the administration of public affairs contracts. By parasitism I mean that kind of inactivity which contributes neither labour nor wealth to society, which accumulates without ever losing, and which the masses regard with foolish admiration and the wise with scornful compassion for those victims who fall into its clutches and who lacking that drive towards an active life which is given by the necessity of caring for or increasing the requisites of life, let all their energies drift at the mercy of the passions of opinion, which are not the weakest of passions. We cannot call someone a social parasite who enjoys the fruits of his own forefathers' virtues or vices and who, in return for his temporary pleasures, dispenses bread and a livelihood to the industrious poor, and who wages by means of his wealth the silent war of trade in peacetime, rather than waging with force the uncertain and bloody sort of war.