The economy is not like a monastery or a convent – where everyone has made a conscious decision to renounce their private pursuits and embrace the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. There, and only there, property is organised “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” (a principle that Karl Marx wanted to apply to society as a whole – with truly disastrous results).

This arrangement works and is spiritually fruitful in a monastery because, and only because, it is voluntary. Each person has renounced the primary project of ordinary mammals – reproduction – and willingly surrendered the fruits of his or her labour to serve a common good, as determined by a superior whom he or she obeys (excepting sin) as the voice of God.