Screen Guide for Americans

4. DON’T SMEAR WEALTH.

In a free society — such as America — wealth is achieved through production, and through the voluntary exchange of one’s goods or services. You cannot hold production as evil — nor can you hold as evil a man’s right to keep the result of his own effort.

Only savages and Communists get rich by force — that is, by looting the property of others. It is a basic American principle that each man is free to work for his own benefit and to go as far as his ability will carry him; and his property is his — whether he has made one dollar or one million dollars.

If the villain in your story happens to be rich — don’t permit lines of dialogue suggesting that he is the typical representative of a whole social class, the symbol of all the rich. Keep it clear in your mind and in your script that his villainy is due to his own personal character — not to his wealth or class.

If you do not see the difference between wealth honestly produced and wealth looted — you are preaching the ideas of Communism. You are implying that all property and all human labor should belong to the State. And you are inciting men to crime: If all wealth is evil, no matter how acquired, why should a man bother to earn it? He might as well seize it by robbery or expropriation.

It is the proper wish of every decent American to stand on his own feet, earn his own living, and be as good at it as he can — that is, get as rich as he can by honest exchange.

Stop insulting him and stop defaming his proper ambition. Stop giving him — and yourself — a guilt complex by spreading unthinkingly the slogans of Communism. Put an end to that pernicious modern hypocrisy: everybody wants to get rich and almost everybody feels that he must apologize for it.