The Captain: You see, it's... it's no good, Montag. We've all got to be alike. The only way to be happy is for everyone to be made equal. --
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
" He [Chesterton] suggests a Christian system would involve every family having enough property to support themselves, but not much more."
Well, I like a great deal of what Chesterton said, but I do not consider myself obliged to slavishly and unquestioningly go along with every particular thing he ever thought or said.
Who, exactly -- what commissar or "czar" or "people's committee" will decide for us -- for every family (or individual) -- how much we need -- how much is "enough" -- to support ourselves? Who will enforce this equality, and how?
I sincerely believe that I myself have special and specialized needs in housing, clothing, equipment, and transportation, which no elected official or appointed bureaucrat could ever anticipate, and which I doubt more than a few hundred members of the human race could even begin to understand. It would cost a lot too. If someone says I ask too much, I reply, "Fine, but without what I need to work with -- to do the work I was put here for -- it will not be done. At least not by me. As Gandalf said when implored to start a fire during the blizzard on Mt. Caradhras, 'I cannot burn snow. I must have something to work with.' "
DWM