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Chapter 22: Poverty Is a Power Game

Every family is miserable. Children are a torture. They are a continuous nuisance. She has to keep up with those children the whole day. And the whole day she is burning, boiling inside. And this man, her husband, is responsible for this all. Naturally there is continuous fight, continuous quarrel. Life is not a joy, and poverty is bound to be there.

In this commune families have dissolved.

I am against families because family is the unit of the nation, of the society, of the church. If family dissolves there cannot be any congregation, there cannot be any nation, there cannot be any church.

Five thousand people can be taken care of by one kitchen far more efficiently, in a far better way. And only very few people are involved in the work.

Few people can take care of the whole commune’s laundry. There is no need for them to worry about it. Few people can take care of the cleaning of the whole commune.

Economically it saves much. Economically money becomes irrelevant. In the commune there is no transfer of money. There is no need. Clothes we purchase wholesale for five thousand people. Naturally they are cheaper than anybody can purchase. Everything that is needed we purchase wholesale: medicine, shoes. It is cheaper.

And whatever is saved can make the commune more comfortable.

And because the family is dissolved, the barriers between people are no more there. Five thousand people feel almost as one organic unity.

They work for themselves. They work hard because they know they are working for themselves. If they are making houses, they are making for themselves.

In the outside world everybody is working for somebody else. That makes work a burden, a necessity, a slavery. You have to work because you need money.

Here you work because you want your commune to live more comfortably, have all modern equipments available.

The world has passed the family. It is unnecessarily hanging around and keeping people poor.

Cities should be divided into communes, not in families, and every commune should look after itself. And everything should be common.

It is just a question of little intelligence, not a question of service to the poor.

And we have enough intelligent people around the world who can manage it. And they will have to manage it, otherwise we cannot survive. Okay?