labor

48:4.1Joy­ful mirth and the smile-equiv­a­lent are as uni­ver­sal as mu­sic. There is a mor­ontial and a spir­i­tual equiv­a­lent of mirth and laugh­ter. The as­cen­dant life is about equally di­vided be­tween work and play—free­dom from as­sign­ment.

63:4.2The tribal life of the an­i­mal an­ces­tors of these early men had fore­shad­owed the be­gin­nings of nu­mer­ous so­cial con­ven­tions, and with the ex­pand­ing emo­tions and aug­mented brain pow­ers of these be­ings, there was an im­me­di­ate de­vel­op­ment in so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion and a new di­vi­sion of clan la­bor. They were ex­ceed­ingly im­i­ta­tive, but the play in­stinct was only slightly de­vel­oped, and the sense of hu­mor was al­most en­tirely ab­sent. Prim­i­tive man smiled oc­ca­sion­ally, but he never in­dulged in hearty laugh­ter. Hu­mor was the legacy of the later Adamic race. These early hu­man be­ings were not so sen­si­tive to pain nor so re­ac­tive to un­pleas­ant sit­u­a­tions as were many of the later evolv­ing mor­tals. Child­birth was not a painful or dis­tress­ing or­deal to Fonta and her im­me­di­ate progeny.

81:6.2910. Co-or­di­na­tion of spe­cial­ists. Civ­i­liza­tion has been enor­mously ad­vanced by the early di­vi­sion of la­bor and by its later corol­lary of spe­cial­iza­tion. Civ­i­liza­tion is now de­pen­dent on the ef­fec­tive co-or­di­na­tion of spe­cial­ists. As so­ci­ety ex­pands, some method of draw­ing to­gether the var­i­ous spe­cial­ists must be found.

69:8.11While the ideal of so­ci­ety is uni­ver­sal free­dom, idle­ness should never be tol­er­ated. All able-bod­ied per­sons should be com­pelled to do at least a self-sus­tain­ing amount of work.

71:3.7The laws of the ideal state are few in num­ber, and they have passed out of the neg­a­tivis­tic taboo age into the era of the pos­i­tive prog­ress of in­di­vid­ual lib­erty con­se­quent upon en­hanced self-con­trol. The ex­alted state not only com­pels its cit­i­zens to work but also en­tices them into prof­itable and up­lift­ing uti­liza­tion of the in­creas­ing leisure which re­sults from toil lib­er­a­tion by the ad­vanc­ing ma­chine age. Leisure must pro­duce as well as con­sume.

71:3.8No so­ci­ety has pro­gressed very far when it per­mits idle­ness or tol­er­ates pov­erty. But pov­erty and de­pen­dence can never be elim­i­nated if the de­fec­tive and de­gen­er­ate stocks are freely sup­ported and per­mit­ted to re­pro­duce with­out re­straint.

71:4.86. Com­pul­sory em­ploy­ment.

72:5.11La­bor is be­com­ing more hon­or­able on this con­ti­nent, and all able-bod­ied cit­i­zens over eigh­teen work ei­ther at home and on farms, at some rec­og­nized in­dus­try, on the pub­lic works where the tem­porar­ily un­em­ployed are ab­sorbed, or else in the corps of com­pul­sory la­bor­ers in the mines.

72:6.41. One day’s earn­ings each month are req­ui­si­tioned by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment for this pur­pose, and in this coun­try ev­ery­body works.

72:6.63. The earn­ings of com­pul­sory la­bor in the state mines. Af­ter the con­script work­ers sup­port them­selves and set aside their own re­tire­ment con­tri­bu­tions, all ex­cess prof­its on their la­bor are turned over to this pen­sion fund.

72:5.4The in­dus­trial courts are only thirty years old but are func­tion­ing very sat­is­fac­to­rily. The most re­cent de­vel­op­ment pro­vides that here­after the in­dus­trial courts shall rec­og­nize le­gal com­pen­sa­tion as falling in three di­vi­sions:

72:5.51. Le­gal rates of in­ter­est on in­vested cap­i­tal.

72:5.62. Rea­son­able salary for skill em­ployed in in­dus­trial op­er­a­tions.

72:5.73. Fair and eq­ui­table wages for la­bor.

72:5.8These shall first be met in ac­cor­dance with con­tract, or in the face of de­creased earn­ings they shall share pro­por­tion­ally in tran­sient re­duc­tion. And there­after all earn­ings in ex­cess of these fixed charges shall be re­garded as div­i­dends and shall be pro­rated to all three di­vi­sions: cap­i­tal, skill, and la­bor.

81:6.30So­cial, artis­tic, tech­ni­cal, and in­dus­trial spe­cial­ists will con­tinue to mul­ti­ply and in­crease in skill and dex­ter­ity. And this di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of abil­ity and dis­sim­i­lar­ity of em­ploy­ment will even­tu­ally weaken and dis­in­te­grate hu­man so­ci­ety if ef­fec­tive means of co-or­di­na­tion and co-op­er­a­tion are not de­vel­oped. But the in­tel­li­gence which is ca­pa­ble of such in­ven­tive­ness and such spe­cial­iza­tion should be wholly com­pe­tent to de­vise ad­e­quate meth­ods of con­trol and ad­just­ment for all prob­lems re­sult­ing from the rapid growth of in­ven­tion and the ac­cel­er­ated pace of cul­tural ex­pan­sion.

81:6.3111. Place-find­ing de­vices. The next age of so­cial de­vel­op­ment will be em­bod­ied in a bet­ter and more ef­fec­tive co-op­er­a­tion and co-or­di­na­tion of ever-in­creas­ing and ex­pand­ing spe­cial­iza­tion. And as la­bor more and more di­ver­si­fies, some tech­nique for di­rect­ing in­di­vid­u­als to suit­able em­ploy­ment must be de­vised. Ma­chin­ery is not the only cause for un­em­ploy­ment among the civ­i­lized peo­ples of Uran­tia. Eco­nomic com­plex­ity and the steady in­crease of in­dus­trial and pro­fes­sional spe­cial­ism add to the prob­lems of la­bor place­ment.

81:6.32It is not enough to train men for work; in a com­plex so­ci­ety there must also be pro­vided ef­fi­cient meth­ods of place find­ing. Be­fore train­ing cit­i­zens in the highly spe­cial­ized tech­niques of earn­ing a liv­ing, they should be trained in one or more meth­ods of com­mon­place la­bor, trades or call­ings which could be uti­lized when they were tran­siently un­em­ployed in their spe­cial­ized work. No civ­i­liza­tion can sur­vive the long-time har­bor­ing of large classes of un­em­ployed. In time, even the best of cit­i­zens will be­come dis­torted and de­mor­al­ized by ac­cept­ing sup­port from the pub­lic trea­sury. Even pri­vate char­ity be­comes per­ni­cious when long ex­tended to able-bod­ied cit­i­zens.

81:6.33Such a highly spe­cial­ized so­ci­ety will not take kindly to the an­cient com­mu­nal and feu­dal prac­tices of olden peo­ples. True, many com­mon ser­vices can be ac­cept­ably and prof­itably so­cial­ized, but highly trained and ul­tra­spe­cial­ized hu­man be­ings can best be man­aged by some tech­nique of in­tel­li­gent co-op­er­a­tion. Mod­ern­ized co-or­di­na­tion and fra­ter­nal reg­u­la­tion will be pro­duc­tive of longer-lived co-op­er­a­tion than will the older and more prim­i­tive meth­ods of com­mu­nism or dic­ta­to­rial reg­u­la­tive in­sti­tu­tions based on force.

69:2.5La­bor, the ef­forts of de­sign, dis­tin­guishes man from the beast, whose ex­er­tions are largely in­stinc­tive. The ne­ces­sity for la­bor is man’s paramount bless­ing. The Prince’s staff all worked; they did much to en­no­ble phys­i­cal la­bor on Uran­tia. Adam was a gar­dener; the God of the He­brews la­bored—he was the cre­ator and up­holder of all things. The He­brews were the first tribe to put a su­preme pre­mium on in­dus­try; they were the first peo­ple to de­cree that “he who does not work shall not eat.” But many of the re­li­gions of the world re­verted to the early ideal of idle­ness. Jupiter was a rev­eler, and Bud­dha be­came a re­flec­tive devo­tee of leisure.

133:4.8To the mis­tress of the Greek inn he said: “Min­is­ter your hos­pi­tal­ity as one who en­ter­tains the chil­dren of the Most High. El­e­vate the drudgery of your daily toil to the high lev­els of a fine art through the in­creas­ing re­al­iza­tion that you min­is­ter to God in the per­sons whom he in­dwells by his spirit which has de­scended to live within the hearts of men, thereby seek­ing to trans­form their minds and lead their souls to the knowl­edge of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of all these be­stowed gifts of the di­vine spirit.”

181:2.19Je­sus then went over to the Al­pheus twins and, stand­ing be­tween them, said: “My lit­tle chil­dren, you are one of the three groups of broth­ers who chose to fol­low af­ter me. All six of you have done well to work in peace with your own flesh and blood, but none have done bet­ter than you. Hard times are just ahead of us. You may not un­der­stand all that will be­fall you and your breth­ren, but never doubt that you were once called to the work of the king­dom. For some time there will be no mul­ti­tudes to man­age, but do not be­come dis­cour­aged; when your life­work is fin­ished, I will re­ceive you on high, where in glory you shall tell of your sal­va­tion to se­raphic hosts and to mul­ti­tudes of the high Sons of God. Ded­i­cate your lives to the en­hance­ment of com­mon­place toil. Show all men on earth and the an­gels of heaven how cheer­fully and coura­geously mor­tal man can, af­ter hav­ing been called to work for a sea­son in the spe­cial ser­vice of God, re­turn to the labors of for­mer days. If, for the time be­ing, your work in the out­ward af­fairs of the king­dom should be com­pleted, you should go back to your for­mer labors with the new en­light­en­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of son­ship with God and with the ex­alted re­al­iza­tion that, to him who is God-know­ing, there is no such thing as com­mon la­bor or sec­u­lar toil. To you who have worked with me, all things have be­come sa­cred, and all earthly la­bor has be­come a ser­vice even to God the Fa­ther. And when you hear the news of the do­ings of your for­mer apos­tolic as­so­ciates, re­joice with them and con­tinue your daily work as those who wait upon God and serve while they wait. You have been my apos­tles, and you al­ways shall be, and I will re­mem­ber you in the king­dom to come.”

192:2.13Then he walked and talked with the Al­pheus twins, James and Ju­das, and speak­ing to both of them, he asked, “James and Ju­das, do you be­lieve in me?” And when they both an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we do be­lieve,” he said: “I will soon leave you. You see that I have al­ready left you in the flesh. I tarry only a short time in this form be­fore I go to my Fa­ther. You be­lieve in me—you are my apos­tles, and you al­ways will be. Go on be­liev­ing and re­mem­ber­ing your as­so­ci­a­tion with me, when I am gone, and af­ter you have, per­chance, re­turned to the work you used to do be­fore you came to live with me. Never al­low a change in your out­ward work to in­flu­ence your al­le­giance. Have faith in God to the end of your days on earth. Never for­get that, when you are a faith son of God, all up­right work of the realm is sa­cred. Noth­ing which a son of God does can be com­mon. Do your work, there­fore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and bet­ter worlds where you shall like­wise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you.”

140:8.21. Do­ing the Fa­ther’s will. Je­sus’ teach­ing to trust in the over­care of the heav­enly Fa­ther was not a blind and pas­sive fa­tal­ism. He quoted with ap­proval, on this af­ter­noon, an old He­brew say­ing: “He who will not work shall not eat.” He pointed to his own ex­pe­ri­ence as suf­fi­cient com­men­tary on his teach­ings. His pre­cepts about trust­ing the Fa­ther must not be ad­judged by the so­cial or eco­nomic con­di­tions of mod­ern times or any other age. His in­struc­tion em­braces the ideal prin­ci­ples of liv­ing near God in all ages and on all worlds.

159:3.4Take care that you do not wound the self-re­spect of timid and fear­ful souls. Do not in­dulge in sar­casm at the ex­pense of my sim­ple-minded breth­ren. Be not cyn­i­cal with my fear-rid­den chil­dren. Idle­ness is de­struc­tive of self-re­spect; there­fore, ad­mon­ish your breth­ren ever to keep busy at their cho­sen tasks, and put forth ev­ery ef­fort to se­cure work for those who find them­selves with­out em­ploy­ment.

134:9.7Dur­ing this fi­nal pe­riod of Je­sus’ work at the boat­shop, he spent most of his time on the in­te­rior fin­ish­ing of some of the larger craft. He took great pains with all his hand­i­work and seemed to ex­pe­ri­ence the sat­is­fac­tion of hu­man achieve­ment when he had com­pleted a com­mend­able piece of work. Though he wasted lit­tle time upon tri­fles, he was a painstak­ing work­man when it came to the es­sen­tials of any given un­der­tak­ing.

135:8.2Je­sus’ broth­ers James and Jude had talked about go­ing down to John for bap­tism; and now that Jude had come over to Ca­per­naum for the Sab­bath ser­vices, both he and James, af­ter lis­ten­ing to Je­sus’ dis­course in the syn­a­gogue, de­cided to take coun­sel with him con­cern­ing their plans. This was on Sat­ur­day night, Jan­uary 12, A.D. 26. Je­sus re­quested that they post­pone the dis­cus­sion un­til the fol­low­ing day, when he would give them his an­swer. He slept very lit­tle that night, be­ing in close com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven. He had ar­ranged to have noon­time lunch with his broth­ers and to ad­vise them con­cern­ing bap­tism by John. That Sun­day morn­ing Je­sus was work­ing as usual in the boat­shop. James and Jude had ar­rived with the lunch and were wait­ing in the lum­ber room for him, as it was not yet time for the mid­day re­cess, and they knew that Je­sus was very reg­u­lar about such mat­ters.

70:2.176. The threat of stan­dard­ized in­dus­trial slav­ery, per­son­al­ity stag­na­tion. La­bor is en­nobling but drudgery is be­numb­ing.

25:1.1Though de­nom­i­nated servi­tals, these “mid­way crea­tures” of the cen­tral uni­verse are not ser­vants in any me­nial sense of the word. In the spir­i­tual world there is no such thing as me­nial work; all ser­vice is sa­cred and ex­hil­a­rat­ing; nei­ther do the higher or­ders of be­ings look down upon the lower or­ders of ex­is­tence.

48:6.37You will learn that you in­crease your bur­dens and de­crease the like­li­hood of suc­cess by tak­ing your­self too se­ri­ously. Noth­ing can take prece­dence over the work of your sta­tus sphere—this world or the next. Very im­por­tant is the work of prepa­ra­tion for the next higher sphere, but noth­ing equals the im­por­tance of the work of the world in which you are ac­tu­ally liv­ing. But though the work is im­por­tant, the self is not. When you feel im­por­tant, you lose en­ergy to the wear and tear of ego dig­nity so that there is lit­tle en­ergy left to do the work. Self-im­por­tance, not work-im­por­tance, ex­hausts im­ma­ture crea­tures; it is the self el­e­ment that ex­hausts, not the ef­fort to achieve. You can do im­por­tant work if you do not be­come self-im­por­tant; you can do sev­eral things as eas­ily as one if you leave your­self out. Va­ri­ety is rest­ful; mo­not­ony is what wears and ex­hausts. Day af­ter day is alike—just life or the al­ter­na­tive of death.

69:2.3Prim­i­tive man was not slow to rec­og­nize the ad­van­tages of as­so­ci­a­tion. As­so­ci­a­tion led to or­ga­ni­za­tion, and the first re­sult of or­ga­ni­za­tion was di­vi­sion of la­bor, with its im­me­di­ate sav­ing of time and ma­te­ri­als. These spe­cial­iza­tions of la­bor arose by adap­ta­tion to pres­sure—pur­su­ing the paths of less­ened re­sis­tance. Prim­i­tive sav­ages never did any real work cheer­fully or will­ingly. With them con­for­mity was due to the co­er­cion of ne­ces­sity.

69:2.4Prim­i­tive man dis­liked hard work, and he would not hurry un­less con­fronted by grave dan­ger. The time el­e­ment in la­bor, the idea of do­ing a given task within a cer­tain time limit, is en­tirely a mod­ern no­tion. The an­cients were never rushed. It was the dou­ble de­mands of the in­tense strug­gle for ex­is­tence and of the ever-ad­vanc­ing stan­dards of liv­ing that drove the nat­u­rally in­ac­tive races of early man into av­enues of in­dus­try.

102:2.7Evo­lu­tion­ary man does not nat­u­rally rel­ish hard work. To keep pace in his life ex­pe­ri­ence with the im­pelling de­mands and the com­pelling urges of a grow­ing re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence means in­ces­sant ac­tiv­ity in spir­i­tual growth, in­tel­lec­tual ex­pan­sion, fac­tual en­large­ment, and so­cial ser­vice. There is no real re­li­gion apart from a highly ac­tive per­son­al­ity. There­fore do the more in­do­lent of men of­ten seek to es­cape the rig­ors of truly re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties by a species of in­ge­nious self-de­cep­tion through re­sort­ing to a re­treat to the false shel­ter of stereo­typed re­li­gious doc­trines and dog­mas. But true re­li­gion is alive. In­tel­lec­tual crys­tal­liza­tion of re­li­gious con­cepts is the equiv­a­lent of spir­i­tual death. You can­not con­ceive of re­li­gion with­out ideas, but when re­li­gion once be­comes re­duced only to an idea, it is no longer re­li­gion; it has be­come merely a species of hu­man phi­los­o­phy.

143:7.3Wor­ship—con­tem­pla­tion of the spir­i­tual—must al­ter­nate with ser­vice, con­tact with ma­te­rial re­al­ity. Work should al­ter­nate with play; re­li­gion should be bal­anced by hu­mor. Pro­found phi­los­o­phy should be re­lieved by rhyth­mic po­etry. The strain of liv­ing—the time ten­sion of per­son­al­ity—should be re­laxed by the rest­ful­ness of wor­ship. The feel­ings of in­se­cu­rity aris­ing from the fear of per­son­al­ity iso­la­tion in the uni­verse should be an­ti­doted by the faith con­tem­pla­tion of the Fa­ther and by the at­tempted re­al­iza­tion of the Su­preme.

69:3.1The di­vi­sions of la­bor in prim­i­tive so­ci­ety were de­ter­mined first by nat­u­ral, and then by so­cial, cir­cum­stances. The early or­der of spe­cial­iza­tion in la­bor was:

69:3.21. Spe­cial­iza­tion based on sex. Woman’s work was de­rived from the se­lec­tive pres­ence of the child; women nat­u­rally love ba­bies more than men do. Thus woman be­came the rou­tine worker, while man be­came the hunter and fighter, en­gag­ing in ac­cen­tu­ated pe­ri­ods of work and rest.

69:3.3All down through the ages the taboos have op­er­ated to keep woman strictly in her own field. Man has most self­ishly cho­sen the more agree­able work, leav­ing the rou­tine drudgery to woman. Man has al­ways been ashamed to do woman’s work, but woman has never shown any re­luc­tance to do­ing man’s work. But strange to re­cord, both men and women have al­ways worked to­gether in build­ing and fur­nish­ing the home.

69:3.42. Mod­i­fi­ca­tion con­se­quent upon age and dis­ease. These dif­fer­ences de­ter­mined the next di­vi­sion of la­bor. The old men and crip­ples were early set to work mak­ing tools and weapons. They were later as­signed to build­ing ir­ri­ga­tion works.

69:3.53. Dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion based on re­li­gion. The med­i­cine men were the first hu­man be­ings to be ex­empted from phys­i­cal toil; they were the pi­o­neer pro­fes­sional class. The smiths were a small group who com­peted with the med­i­cine men as ma­gi­cians. Their skill in work­ing with met­als made the peo­ple afraid of them. The “white smiths” and the “black smiths” gave ori­gin to the early be­liefs in white and black magic. And this be­lief later be­came in­volved in the su­per­sti­tion of good and bad ghosts, good and bad spir­its.

69:3.6Smiths were the first non­re­li­gious group to en­joy spe­cial priv­i­leges. They were re­garded as neu­trals dur­ing war, and this ex­tra leisure led to their be­com­ing, as a class, the politi­cians of prim­i­tive so­ci­ety. But through gross abuse of these priv­i­leges the smiths be­came uni­ver­sally hated, and the med­i­cine men lost no time in fos­ter­ing ha­tred for their com­peti­tors. In this first con­test be­tween sci­ence and re­li­gion, re­li­gion (su­per­sti­tion) won. Af­ter be­ing driven out of the vil­lages, the smiths main­tained the first inns, pub­lic lodg­ing­houses, on the out­skirts of the set­tle­ments.

69:3.74. Mas­ter and slave. The next dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of la­bor grew out of the re­la­tions of the con­queror to the con­quered, and that meant the be­gin­ning of hu­man slav­ery.

69:3.85. Dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion based on di­verse phys­i­cal and men­tal en­dow­ments. Fur­ther di­vi­sions of la­bor were fa­vored by the in­her­ent dif­fer­ences in men; all hu­man be­ings are not born equal.

69:3.9The early spe­cial­ists in in­dus­try were the flint flak­ers and stone ma­sons; next came the smiths. Sub­se­quently group spe­cial­iza­tion de­vel­oped; whole fam­i­lies and clans ded­i­cated them­selves to cer­tain sorts of la­bor. The ori­gin of one of the ear­li­est castes of priests, apart from the tribal med­i­cine men, was due to the su­per­sti­tious ex­al­ta­tion of a fam­ily of ex­pert sword­mak­ers.

69:3.10The first group spe­cial­ists in in­dus­try were rock salt ex­porters and pot­ters. Women made the plain pot­tery and men the fancy. Among some tribes sewing and weav­ing were done by women, in oth­ers by the men.

69:3.11The early traders were women; they were em­ployed as spies, car­ry­ing on com­merce as a side line. Pres­ently trade ex­panded, the women act­ing as in­ter­me­di­aries—job­bers. Then came the mer­chant class, charg­ing a com­mis­sion, profit, for their ser­vices. Growth of group barter de­vel­oped into com­merce; and fol­low­ing the ex­change of com­modi­ties came the ex­change of skilled la­bor.

44:3.32. The vo­ca­tion builders—those who func­tion in de­sign­ing and as­sem­bling the abodes of the reg­u­lar and rou­tine work­ers of the spirit and mor­ontia realms. These builders are com­pa­ra­ble to those who con­struct the Uran­tia work­shops and other in­dus­trial plants. The tran­si­tion worlds have a nec­es­sary econ­omy of mu­tual min­istry and spe­cial­ized di­vi­sion of la­bor. We do not all do ev­ery­thing; there is di­ver­sity of func­tion among mor­ontia be­ings and evolv­ing spir­its, and these vo­ca­tion builders not only build bet­ter work­shops but also con­tribute to the vo­ca­tional en­hance­ment of the worker.

133:8.3Ga­nid had a very in­ter­est­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in An­ti­och. This young man had proved him­self an apt pupil and al­ready had be­gun to make prac­ti­cal use of some of Je­sus’ teach­ings. There was a cer­tain In­dian con­nected with his fa­ther’s busi­ness in An­ti­och who had be­come so un­pleas­ant and dis­grun­tled that his dis­missal had been con­sid­ered. When Ga­nid heard this, he be­took him­self to his fa­ther’s place of busi­ness and held a long con­fer­ence with his fel­low coun­try­man. This man felt he had been put at the wrong job. Ga­nid told him about the Fa­ther in heaven and in many ways ex­panded his views of re­li­gion. But of all that Ga­nid said, the quo­ta­tion of a He­brew proverb did the most good, and that word of wis­dom was: “What­so­ever your hand finds to do, do that with all your might.”

39:4.13To the in­hab­ited worlds the quick­en­ers of moral­ity por­tray mor­tal life as an un­bro­ken chain of many links. Your short so­journ on Uran­tia, on this sphere of mor­tal in­fancy, is only a sin­gle link, the very first in the long chain that is to stretch across uni­verses and through the eter­nal ages. It is not so much what you learn in this first life; it is the ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing this life that is im­por­tant. Even the work of this world, paramount though it is, is not nearly so im­por­tant as the way in which you do this work. There is no ma­te­rial re­ward for righ­teous liv­ing, but there is pro­found sat­is­fac­tion—con­scious­ness of achieve­ment—and this tran­scends any con­ceiv­able ma­te­rial re­ward.