The Little Red Hen

I just put my four-year old to bed. He likes to read before he gets tucked in. Tonight, he wanted to read his favorite book at the moment, “the chicken book”. The actual name is The Little Red Hen. It was one of my favorite books as a kid and I’m happy my love for the book gets passed on to at least one of my kids. It’s a silly little book about a hen finding a grain of wheat. She asks for help to plant, harvest, mill it, etc. from the other farm animals but they all refuse. I think we can find some valuable life lessons from this story and I’d like to share some of my thoughts. Some of my ideas might be straying a bit far from the book but hang in there. I think they’ll all come together in some sort of natural way.

The first page of the book starts off with the hen finding a grain of wheat and deciding to plant it. This got me thinking about private property and what gives man the right to private ownership. After all, we all share this planet. What gives you the right to exclusiveness concerning what the Earth provides as a common gift to all men? I find my answers from the One who created the heavens and the earth. The Word of God is where I turn for all authority. I know some of you may not believe the same as I do and that’s fine. I’m not going to just cite the Bible and move on. I think basing an argument on authority alone is a bit foolish. You may not believe the same authority as I and I may not believe the same authority as you. If we cite authority, I also believe we need to use reason and logic.

Let’s go to some Scripture. This will set the basis for my reasoning. Right after creation, God commanded man to “subdue” the earth and “have dominion over” it. (Genesis 1:28) The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 115:16 “…even the heavens are the Lord’s; But the earth he has given to the children of men.” You might ask what does this have to do with private ownership? Let’s look at the Ten Commandments, specifically number eight. You shall not steal. (Exodus 20:15) Stealing implies private ownership.

Ok, let’s reason. I think we can all agree that we should improve the earth by cultivating and enriching it, make use of it to better our lives. Look at how much our lives have changed for the better in just the past 100 years. We can travel the world in numerous types of transportation. That same type of transportation allows us to ship goods on a global scale. We can communicate instantly with phones and computers. We can cure sickness with modern medicine. In achieving all this, what does it require from man? It requires labor and thought. This labor and ingenuity is an extension of your personal life. Therefore, the fruits of your labor and intellect are your private property. It belongs exclusively to you.

I’d like to quote from the Second Essay Concerning Civil Government by John Locke. I think his reasoning concerning a person’s property and ownership is brilliant.
“Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person. This, nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property…
He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples ha gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask, then, when did they begin to be his? When he digested? Or when he ate? Or when he boiled? Or when he brought them home? Or when he picked them up? And it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could.
That labour…added something to them [the acorns or apples] more than Nature, the common mother of all, had done, and so they became his private right. And will any one say he had no right to those acorns or apples he thus appropriated because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his?...If such a consent was necessary, {the} man [would have] starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him…It is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state Nature leaves it in, which begins the property, without which the common {gift from God] is of no use.
…Thus the law of reason makes the deer that who hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though, before, it was the common right of every one.”

To sum this up, yes, we all share in common the earth and what it provides. But when you apply your physical or intellectual labor on the common, it becomes your property. Nobody else can take it from you.

Now we get to the meat of the book. The little red hen is asking if anyone would like to help her with improving her property. The answer she gets every time is a big fat no. I’d like to talk about an issue I see in our culture today, laziness. Or lack of a good work ethic.

I’m going to my Authority first, the Bible. There is a lot to be said about the lazy, but I’ll quote some of those that go well with reason.
Proverbs 10:4-5 He who has a slack hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a wise son; He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.
Proverbs 14:23 In all labor there is profit, but idle chatter leads only to poverty.
Proverbs 19:15 Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, an idle person will suffer hunger.
Let’s also go back to Genesis where God commanded man to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. This requires work. To be lazy is to not work and therefore, is a sin against God.

Yes, I’m still aware you may not believe the same authority as I, so let’s reason together. What is the purpose of the lazy? I think I have the answer, but I’ll hold on to it till we get to the end of the book. I’d like to talk about the problem with the lazy. It all boils down to one thing – the lazy add nothing of value to society. They offer no improvement to the state which Nature has left. They offer nothing to better our lives.

Those who work add something of value to society. In this children’s story, the little red hen is offering a partnership in the work. She found a grain of wheat. Remember, the grain of wheat is her property because she bestowed her labor upon it, removing it from the state which nature had left. She is offering to the other animals “will you help me improve on this common gift? It will benefit all of us.” In a free market capitalist society, I imagine she would be negotiating a wage for their labor. The animals would be free to accept, negotiate or deny the offer. As we continue to read the story, each time an offer is presented, the animals choose not to work. They would rather play, and as we’ll get into now, be a burden on society.

We come to the end of the book. The little red hen has asked who would like to help plant the wheat, harvest the wheat, carry it to the mill, make the flour into dough and bake the bread. Again, each time the animals answered “No”. Now she asks, “Who will help me eat the bread?” I think you can guess the answer.

Let’s go back to my previous question. What is the purpose of the lazy? I would say the purpose of the lazy is to enjoy the fruits of other’s labor. This is a big problem. It leads to jealousy and redistribution of wealth. The industrious individual loses his property rights. I see this coming to head right here in America. The “one percenters” are being villainized as greedy and taking from the poor. In reality the wealthy are providing a good or service that a lot of people want and are willing to pay for it. In most cases, that good or service makes our life a whole lot better. They also exchange a wage for your labor if you so choose and you are free to negotiate that exchange.

So how are the lazy a burden on society? I’ll share my personal experience. I work very hard to support my family. Living is expensive. Because of our welfare system, I not only have to support my family, I must support those who refuse to work and are dependent on government handouts. And yes, there are a lot of people who take advantage of the system. On a side note, the government has no authority to be in the welfare/charity business. Charity was always left to the individual.

I need to back things down a bit. I need to stay on point.

We’ll get back to the story and how it ends. As we see the lazy are always ready to take something they didn’t work for. The little red hen did all the work. The bread is the fruit of her labor. It is an extension of her life. It is her private property. She can do with it what she wants. She can give it away, sell it or keep it. She decided to keep it while teaching a hard life lesson – if you don’t work, you don’t eat!

I would like to add I am a compassionate person to those who are truly in need. We all should give a helping hand when we can. Just keep the government out of it.

That is all for now.