The Self-Indulgent – Folha de S. Paulo, January 13, 1974

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Indulgence is a virtue that everyone likes. People of integrity like it because loving and practicing all virtues is part of the concept of integrity. People who lack integrity like it because indulgence is very advantageous for those who are guilty.

Of course, people of integrity practice indulgence mainly toward others, while those who lack integrity practice it especially toward themselves. This nuance is important because it is rare to find someone who places unquestioning trust in those who indulge themselves. For example, self-indulgence is not a virtue we are happy to find in people to whom we entrust our material interests.

However, there are exceptions to this rule. For example, in Georgia. I have heard that in this small republic of about five million inhabitants, forcibly federated to the so-called Soviet Union, self-indulgence has been practiced on a large scale, to my unreserved approval. The reader can judge whether I am right.

As everyone knows, every man is his own master. Therefore, he is the master of his capacity for work. Consequently, he is also the master of the fruit of that capacity, that is, the fruit of his labor. Thus, every man has an immediate natural right to what he produces. And the violation of that right is called theft.

It matters little whether this right is violated by a person or by the state: it is still theft. Both states and individuals are subject to the 7th commandment: thou shalt not steal.

Marxists think exactly the opposite. In a communist regime, all products of private labor belong to the state. It is a thief state that proudly proclaims itself as such.

Perhaps Georgians are familiar with the adage “whoever steals from a thief has a hundred years of forgiveness.” In fact, little by little, the population escaped the communist regime and largely restored private property. This, of course, came at the expense of the public coffers, the “owners” of everything Georgians produce.

As a result, numerous cheerful and comfortable summer residences have appeared along the Georgia coast, where four thousand families have settled. This contrasted with the gloomy, uniform poverty of the communist atmosphere, thereby awakening the local Communist Party from its bureaucratic slumber. The Party then, through Farya Vostoka, its mouthpiece, denounced the Babylonian luxury of the criminal villas. The little newspaper was especially furious because many of those homes even had marble floors in the bathroom and, oh, scandal!, a billiard room. Meanwhile, the red tabloid pointed out a shortage of housing for the middle class and of schools. Time magazine reported this on December 3.

For my part, I can see the robust Georgians looking with pleased indulgence at the homes they have acquired through the fruit of their labor, shrugging their shoulders with a hearty laugh at the little newspaper’s accusation. What fault lies with the owners of these “luxurious” residences if, due to the regime’s incompetence, there is a shortage of schools and housing? Should they sacrifice their own homes out of love for their neighbors? Or, on the contrary, should love for their neighbors inspire them to shake off the communist regime, which produces nothing but poverty? The most direct way to shake off this yoke is for each person to transgress the regime as much as possible, paving the way for general liberation. Time magazine calls this category of lucid and uninhibited transgressors “self-indulgent.” In this case, long live self-indulgence! Don’t you agree?

With one reservation: Is the expression “self-indulgent” accurate in this case? For me, one can only speak of self-righteous people who take justice into their own hands in a country where there is no other way to obtain it from the state.