A Slave of the State

Peter did not wish to turn to the state.  "He who is a pensioner of the state is a slave of the state," he felt...

Peter's plan was that groups should borrow from mutual aid credit unions in the parish to start what he first liked to call argonomic universities, where the worker could become a scholar and the scholar a worker. Or he wanted people to give the land and money. He always spoke of giving. Those who had land and tools should give. Those who had capital should give. Those who had labor should give that. "Love is an exchange of gifts," St. Ignatius had said. It was in these simple, practical, down to earth ways that people could show their love for each other. If the love was not there in the beginning, but only the need, such gifts made love grow.--Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness, pg. 225

For more discussion on the logic of the gift, see here, here, here, and here (see about midway into his piece).