Benefit society

“ It is unjust that the whole society should contribute towards an expense, of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society. ”

“ So it is with things which more indirectly further welfare, as good tools or good roads. When we speak of a good workman, a good teacher, a good doctor, it is the same: efficiency in aiding others’ well-being is what we indirectly mean. Yet again, good government, good institutions, good laws, connote benefits yielded to the society in which they exist: benefits being equivalent to certain kinds of happiness, positive or negative. ”

“ What, for example, are the qualities in the citizens individually which conduce most to keep up the amount of good conduct, of good management, of success and prosperity, which already exist in society? Every body will agree that those qualities are industry, integrity, justice, and prudence. But are not these, of all qualities, the most conducive to improvement? and is not any growth of these virtues in the community in itself the greatest of improvements? ”

“ Wherefore for the public interest and benefit of human society it is requisite that the highest obligations possible should be laid upon the consciences of men. ”

“ This structure, which adapts a society for combined action against other societies, is associated with the belief that its members exist for the benefit of the whole, and not the whole for the benefit of its members. ”

“ Use of wealth individual.—It is necessary to realize that the social organization is maintained solely for the sake of individuals. All study of welfare and illfare is a study of individual human beings. The mutual relations of these human beings in society are means to individual life, growth and enjoyment. Even the total power of a generation in society is dependent upon how the individual wants of individual members of that society are met. ”

“ The great question of today in every civilized land is, How can the accumulations of power in the shape of wealth made by this generation be used to establish a continuous welfare, not only for this generation, but for its successors? The wants of society today include not only a reasonable provision for life and health and wisdom and virtue during the life of those who are now active, but an equal provision for the same wants increased with each succeeding generation. ”

“ In a word, it is the efficient functioning of every social group. The family, the community, the nation, and every minor group, will serve effectually the economic, cultural, social, and spiritual needs of the individuals of whom it is composed. Perfect functioning can follow only after a long period of progress. Such progress is the ideal that society sets for itself. In that process there must be full recognition of all the factors that enter into social life. There is the individual with his rights and obligations, who must be protected and encouraged to grow. ”

“ This personal responsibility makes the question of consumption of wealth a question of morals as well as of wisdom. The whole discussion here turns upon the wisdom or unwisdom of certain personal uses or social uses of what the world has accumulated. We can ask what use of wealth is prudent, what imprudent; then what social organization best develops the wisdom which secures a prudent use of wealth; and finally, how far and in what ways society can act as a unit in the place of individuals. ”

“ What kind of coin do you propose to pay in the discharge of the obligation which comes upon you with social recognition? In other words, as a return for what you wish to have society do for you, what can you do for society? This is a very important question—more important to you than to society. The question is, whether you will be a member of society by right, or by courtesy. If you have so mean a spirit as to be content to be a beneficiary of society—to receive favors and to confer none—you have no business in the society to which you aspire. ”

“ You may thus perceive how industry lies at the very root of human civilisation; how, by providing in an abundant measure for man's lower wants, it affords occasion for the manifestation of the higher exigencies of his nature, which, but for these inferior satisfactions, would lie dormant and inert; how it is, as it were, the lever which originally set in motion the machinery by which society is carried forward from one stage of improvement to another; in a word, how it promotes not only the physical welfare, but also paves the way for the moral and intellectual advancement of mankind. ”

“ The science of education deals with ways and means of securing public wisdom. The science of government includes all facts relative to public virtue. So the facts by which we know the nature and uses of accumulated wealth in any community make a distinct study under the name economic science; it deals with certain definite groups of facts. To call everything good “wealth” and everything evil “ilth” adds nothing but confusion to our thoughts.
Mutual welfare.—Every human being in society is directly interested in the study of wealth as related to his own and his neighbors' welfare. ”

“ We must admit, too, that for any period to which we can look forward, the great mass of mankind will find enough to occupy their energies in labouring primarily for their own support, and so bearing the burden of their own needs and the needs of their families. We may infer, too, that a society will be the better so far as it gives the most open careers to all talents, wherever displayed, and as it shows respect for the homely virtues of industry, integrity, and forethought, which are essential to the whole body as to its constituent members. ”

“ And, having become so far adjusted, I recognize that the social will is distributing rewards most lavishly. The whole organism of society is its instrument. Work is found for me, and I am paid for it. ”

“ Let it be your ambition by indefatigable industry, unremitting activity, and endurance, to become a useful member of society, and thus be a credit to your faith, a source of joy to your parents, and a benefactor to your fellow-men. ”

“ He held that individual effort needed to be restrained and guided by the conscience of the community acting through the organisation of the state; and that economic well-being could be secured by moralising the existing order of society without greatly altering the basis of political power. ”

“ What inherent worth and solid dignity are ascribed to the social of their nature! In every man with whom I may have to do, I am to recognize the presence of another self, whose case I am to make my own. And thus I am to dispose of whatever claims he may urge upon me.
Thus, in accordance with the Golden Rule, mankind are naturally brought, in the voluntary use of their powers and resources, to promote each other's welfare. ”

“ Put social conditions on a sound basis, the people on this side often say, let all receive an adequate economic return for their work and be recognised as having a claim for an adequate share in the products of society, and there is no need to worry about the race or about the need for birth-control, all will go well of itself. ”

“ When such consummation can take place, all essential as it seems to our national welfare, and devoutly as every one may wish it, none but he who knoweth all things can possibly tell. But each of us may venture so far as to predict, that voluntary institutions and societies, similar, gentlemen, to that which you have established, hold out far more cheering promises of success than can be hoped for from any other source. They will serve as appropriate nuclei, (if I may thus apply the term) for attracting around them the scattered talent, the learning and active benevolence of society. ”

“ Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. ”

“ Others, again, would argue that the advantage and wellbeing of the community, of which each man was a member, was promoted by the observance of these moral rules; and hence the promotion of this welfare was a sufficient reason why these rules should be observed. The promotion and maintenance of the wellbeing of society was thus set forth as the ground of moral obligation. ”

“ Like the political and economic ones, major social institutions--cultural, educational, rehabilitative, and others--should be generally organized with the well-being and dignity of man as the essential measure of success. ”

“ These will come when the intelligent and moneyed classes awake to the importance of the subject; to the understanding that the knowledge of methods for securing immense social improvements is in existence; and to a determination to possess that knowledge and to apply it to its legitimate ends—the organization of a social providence for the ignorant and weak, and the binding of all classes of society into relations of mutual sympathy and assistance. ”

“ In any conceivable state of things, the welfare of every society, the total means of enjoyment at its disposal, must depend upon the energy, intelligence, and trustworthiness of its constituent members. ”

“ The economic sphere would have as its basis the principles:
that work should involve incentives worthier than money or survival. It should be educative, not stultifying; creative, not mechanical; self-directed, not manipulated, encouraging independence, a respect for others, a sense of dignity, and a willingness to accept social responsibility, since it is this experience that has crucial influence on habits, perceptions and individual ethics ”

“ That which, when we become capable of reflection, we term conscience, consists in pleasure in forms of action furthering the welfare of society—forms gradually moulded to habit with the development of social relations,—and in a corresponding pain at the realization of having failed of such action; the knowledge of the demand, by society as a whole or by a part of society, of action in accord with the general welfare, and the sense of the justice of this demand, constituting the feeling of obligation and duty. ”

“ What constitutes a good life? What is necessary to human flourishing? What kinds of human capabilities do particular societies value, encourage, genuinely enable, or block? What conceptions of human nature and the good society underpin our contemporary economic discourse? Can we, as ordinary citizens, enter the discourse on economic policy issues, or are we too economically illiterate for that? ”

“ Many of them possess well cultivated minds, and are meritorious and valuable members of society; actuated by that high sense of honour which would detain them in obscurity for life rather than forfeit their principles; but some of them have, at the same time, wives and children looking up to them for support, to provide which, and to give them the advantages of education, the utmost exertions of industry and economy are required. ”

“ Private individuals administer praise, honour, esteem, approbation, and reward. In a few instances, the Government dispenses rewards, as in the bestowal of office, rank, titles, and pensions, but this function is exceptional and limited.
The conduct rewarded by Society is chiefly resolvable into Beneficence. Whoever is moved to incur sacrifices, or to go through labours, for the good of others, is the object, not merely of gratitude from the persons benefited, but of approbation from society at large. ”

“ In the new society—let it be remembered—the means that each individual will employ for his education and development will be the property of society. Society cannot feel obliged to reward particularly what it alone has made possible, its own product. ”

“ Reason will take care that each individual receive indirectly from the hands of society, the whole and complete cultivation which he cannot obtain directly from Nature. Society will gather together the special gifts of every individual member into a common fund for the free use of all, and thus multiply them by the number of those who share their advantages ”

“ These are the bases of civil and polite society; namely, manners, conversation, lucrative labor, and public action, whether political, or in the leading of social institutions. We have much to regret, much to [Pg 95] mend, in our society; but I believe that with all liberal and hopeful men there is a firm faith in the beneficent results which we really enjoy; that intelligence, manly enterprise, good education, virtuous life, and elegant manners have been and are found here, and, we hope, in the next generation will still more abound. ”

“ It is of importance to society as well as to the individual that talent should be discovered in time, that tasks should be fitted to aptitudes, that each member of society should attain to his highest efficiency. The approach to this ideal, made possible by popular education, the decline of caste, the spread of genuine democracy, the progress of social justice, will increase not only the workers' efficiency, but society's abiding welfare. ”

“ I promise to further social welfare; to promote the idea that prosperity consists essentially in persons and only incidentally in things; to be true to this faith in public and in private, in work and in play ”

“ Still we have insisted that, since the end of society is to make men better, the chief good that society can possess is virtue. Nevertheless, in all well-constituted States it is in no wise a matter of small moment to provide those bodily and external commodities the use of which is necessary to virtuous action. [26] And in order to provide such material well-being, the labor of the poor—the exercise of their skill, and the employment of their strength, in the culture of the land and in the workshops of trade—is of great account and quite indispensable. ”