We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

[HeiressofBickworth]

123. Oh, so THAT'S where the idea came from

Many years ago, I met a friend of my brother's. He was from an affluent family and was hitchhiking around the world. He spent his time doing what we now call "couch surfing", i.e., living on the hospitality of anyone who would take him in. He contributed neither money nor labor in exchange. His pinnacle of achievement, to him, was the three months he spent on the beach in India smoking pot and reading various philosophers. Must be when he discovered Fuller. Anyway, this fellow explained to me one day that not everyone needs to work for a living. He said that the people with superior intellect (of which he counted himself, natch) should spend their time developing new ideas and philosophies and those who couldn't achieve this lofty intellectual plane should be the ones to work and support those thinkers. He though that all work was, by definition, menial and not worthy of a thinker's time.

Now, that was in 1976. Looking back, I see the beginnings of the 1%. Although the current 1% think that because they have all the money, those who actually perform some kind of labor should be supporting them. Currently the superior intellect test doesn't apply -- just a bank account review.

I thought it was a crack-pot idea back then and I think the same thing now.