The ideal of the common purse and the inevitability of corruption

Throw in your lot with us, and we will share a common purse.

Proverbs 1:14

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
Imagine by John Lennon (1971)

60 years in the PRC: From Mao to now, the corruption of power, by Bernardo Cervellera. ". . .  The great successes of China are obvious to the eyes of all, but also the great failures of China: a society where the state controls more than 70% of the economy, curbing creativity and handing out promotions and favours to those without any merit, rampant corruption results in up to 3% of gross domestic product being stolen from the state, lack of social support for the poor, pensioners, unemployed, a lack of access to health and education facilities for a fall, parents who sell their organs to pay for college for children, pollution, harassment, seizures of land and houses by members of the party. Because of this, now the party is seen as synonymous with 'corruption.'"

Code of Nature by Morelly (1755) [Source: Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders, ed., Socialist Thought: A Documentary History, New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), pp. 18-31.]. "I believe that no one will contest the justness of this proposition: that where no property exists, none of its pernicious consequences could exist. . . . I say that the grounds for all these defects [of human nature] can be seen in the general tenancy of legislators to allow the primary link to all of all sociability to be broken by the usurpation of the resources that should belong in common to all humanity . . . ."


Pilgrims of a common life: Christian community of goods through the centuries, By Trevor John Saxby (1987)
[page 152] While the Christian who lived with all things in common said out of love, "I have more than you, so I will share it with you," the communist said, out of frustration and revenge: "You have more than I, so I will seize it."

[page 165] Many have realized with shock that the mere pooling of possessions, though apparently so costly a sacrifice, is not the recipe for instant success. The twelfth-century monastic reformer, Guerric of Igny, put it well: " . . . I still want to impress upon you that truly blessed poverty of spirit is to be found more in humility of heart than in mere privation of everyday possessions, and consists more in the renunciation of pride than in mere contempt for property."

Exploring Proverbs: An Expository Commentary, Volume 1, By John Phillips (1995)
Proverbs 1:14 highlights another feature of gangsterism: "Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse." Today we would say, "Share and share alike." It is an invitation to exploitation.
. . . Proverbs warns against a common purse. Human nature being what it is, there will always be a victim. . . . The philosophy of communism . . . is based on the idea of a common purse: "To each according to his
[page 38] need; from each according to his ability" is the essence of the communist creed. Or as a cynic summed up the way the theory worked out in practice, "What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine."