He who does not work, neither shall he eat

The aphorism is found in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians 3:10, the authorship of which is traditionally assigned to Paul the Apostle (with Silvanus and Timothy), where it reads (in translation): The Greek phrase οὐ θέλει ἐργᾰ́ζεσθαι (ou thélei ergázesthai) means "is not willing to work".

[6]In the spring of 1609, John Smith cited the aphorism to the colonists of Jamestown: Countrymen, the long experience of our late miseries I hope is sufficient to persuade everyone to a present correction of himself, And think not that either my pains nor the adventurers' purses will ever maintain you in idleness and sloth... ...the greater part must be more industrious, or starve... You must obey this now for a law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled).

For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers.

This is a "defect" according to Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law.

"[12] This perspective is argued by economic professor Michael Ellman to have influenced official policy during the famine, with those deemed to be idlers being disfavored in aid distribution as compared to those deemed "conscientiously working collective farmers";[12] in this vein, Olga Andriewsky states that Soviet archives indicate that aid in Ukraine was primarily distributed to preserve the collective farm system and only the most productive workers were prioritized for receiving it.