“You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it”
“You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it” is a saying often attributed to American pastor Adrian Rogers (1931-2005), who used it in a 1998 book. The saying appears in print by 1935-36 and is of unknown origin.
Baptist Reverend Kenneth Walter Sollitt used “You can’t multiply wealth by dividing it” in 1950s lectures to describe four truths of Socialism. A similar saying (cited since at least the 1990s) is: “A pie doesn’t grow through its slicing.”
Wikipedia: Adrian Rogers
Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005), was an American pastor, conservative, author, and a three-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1979-1980 and 1986-1988).
Rogers was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, and decided to enter into the Christian ministry at the age of nineteen. He graduated from Stetson University. Rogers was ordained by Northwood Baptist Church (now known as The Village Baptist Church) in West Palm Beach. In 1972, he became the senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, where he remained until March 2005. During this period, the church’s membership grew from 9,000 to 27,000, and the church moved into a new, megachurch facility.
Rogers was instrumental in the Southern Baptist denomination’s shift towards the right that began in the late 1970s, as he was elected president of the denomination during a theological controversy within the denomination. He published eighteen books and is featured on the internationally-available radio and television program, Love Worth Finding, which is broadcast in English and Spanish.
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“You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
This quote appears frequently on the Internet and is often attributed to Dr. Rogers with an incorrect date of 1931. In fact, the quotation is part of a longer passage in Dr. Rogers’ 1996 work Ten Secrets for a Successful Family complaining that “by and large our young people do not know either the importance or the value of honest labor”.
You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the industrious out of it. You don’t multiply wealth by dividing it. Government cannot give anything to anybody that it doesn’t first take from somebody else. Whenever somebody receives something without working for it, somebody else has to work for it without receiving. The worst thing that can happen to a nation is for half of the people to get the idea they don’t have to work because somebody else will work for them, and the other half to get the idea that it does no good to work because they don’t get to enjoy the fruit of their labor.
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5 March 1935, Emporia (KS) Gazette, pg. 4, col. 2:
In the new arithmetic one may learn how to multiply wealth by dividing it.
29 May 1936, Dallas (TX) Morning News, sec. II, pg. 4”
Arkansas Gazette says that you can’t multiply wealth by dividing it. But the Gimme Boys’ idea is that you can multiply theirs by dividing somebody else’s with ‘em.
Google Books
American Organist
Edited by Thomas Scott Godfrey Burhrman
v. 37
1954
Pg. 405:
Kenneth W. Sollitt, First Baptist, Mendota, Ill. “Socialism has demonstrated over and over again that (1) you can’t multiply wealth by dividing it; that (2) you can’t get rid of a few little monopolies by…
4 October 1955, Coshocton (OH) Tribune, pg. 16, col. 2:
Oysters or Eagles?
By REV. KENNETH W. SOLLITT
First Baptist Church, Midland, Michigan
(...)
Socialism has demonstrated four facts over and over again:
1. You can’t multiply wealth by dividing it.
2. It does no good to get rid of a few little monopolies by creating a big one called “government.”
3. The government can’t give what it does not first take away.
4. It can never take away enough to supply the ever increasing demands of those who are led to believe they are getting something for nothing when they get it from Uncle Sam.
Google Books
Christian democracy for the Philippines:
A re-examination of attitudes and views
By Salvador Araneta
Malabon, Rizal: Araneta University Press
1958
Pg. 140:
That “we can not multiply wealth by simply dividing it, for no government, without producing the wealth first, can give anything to anyone unless it takes…
19 September 1960, Augusta (GA) Chronicle, sec. A, pg. 4:
“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of it. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. Governments cannot give to the people what they do not first take away from the people. And that which one man receives without working for, another man must work for without receiving it. And nothing can kill the initiative of a people quicker than for half to get the idea they need not work because the other half will feed them, and for the other half to get the idea it does no good to work since someone else receives the rewards of their labors. Closing one’s eyes to these facts will not change them one iota.”
—Kenneth W. Sollitt in Christian Economics.
Google Books
Proven Paths
By Robert L. Simpson
Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company
1974
Pg. 109:
You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. Governments cannot give to the people what they do not first take away from the people.
Google Books
Ten Secrets for a Successful Family:
A Perfect 10 for Homes that Win
By Adrian Rogers
Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books
1998
Pg. 1138:
You don’t multiply wealth by dividing it. Government cannot give anything to anybody that it doesn’t first take from somebody else.