The oddest sort of thing which pops up every time I take a look at the Russian Revolution is that the impression that people have of it being all about everyone getting an equal amount of stuff was not at all what it was about. It was about the industrial workers. And when they took power on Oct 24-25 that is what they in fact enforced. The "work book". If people did not have a continuous set of entries they went to jail. They did not receive "welfare". [The "soviets" were the elected representatives of the workers in the city. This was against the "zemstvos" --the elected representatives of the villages.]
There have been plenty of attempted takeovers of the USA by internal enemies that are welfare-takers. And they claim communism for their model. But what they are asking for is to be the masters, and the white people the slaves. They are not actually asking for communism.
And in fact I agree with the idea of work. That is to say I do not think that Torah ought to be a means to make a living. However that does not negate the idea of sitting and learning Torah. But that I think is a matter of trust in God. When one trusts in God, then I believe that often God provides. [Depending on how sincere the trust is.] But to sit and learn and extort money from the State seems to me to be not the Torah way.
Often one finds in kollels that they feel they deserve to get paid for learning Torah. I have never been able to digest that idea.
To me the idea of kollels and even religious leaders getting paid seems ridiculous. Trust in God I understand. But using Torah as a means to make money seems extremely offense to me.
And furthermore- I do not see any devotion to Torah in it. The whole religious business seems like a sneaky way trick. They pretend to not be using Torah to make money while that is exactly what they are doing.
Since it is clear that using Torah to make money is forbidden, why not simply stop it in its tracks--once and for all?
