Better to be given something to do than something to consume. Productive work gives integrity to the worker and something that they can give to others.
Give a man a fish, he eats a meal; teach a man to fish; he provides a meal for others.
Men do not need something simply given to them, they need the ability to given something back.
"Wealth is when you produce more than you consume." — Father Robert Sirico
True wealth is producing more than you consume and providing more than you require. It is not possessing much, but producing much. Wealth is not mere accumulation. It is production. It is having the means to make. It is having the ability to meet needs. It isn't knowing where to get them, but being able to manufacture them. Hiring a man to carry your bags does not make you a strong man. Hiring a man to fly you across the ocean does not make you free to roam. Those things can be taken from you. Wealth is not the ability to pay others to serve you, but the ability to serve others through your productivity. The man strong enough to carry another’s load may charge them for his service, but he can carry his own load for free.
"Centering an economic worldview around consumption is man-focused in the most trite and simplistic of ways; but developing an entire ecosystem of thought and action around production, well that honors the human person, and opens the door to a sustainable, soul-giving eradication of poverty." — David L. Bahnsen, There's No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths
Poverty is not simply being without the things you need, it is the greater issue of not being needed. In other words, it is easier to go without something you need than to go about as something unnecessary. That isn't too say that there are not essentials that everyone needs to exist, but to say that existence requires a reason to exist more than it requires the means to continue existing.
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