Sharing and Giving: The Moral Weight of Ownership
There is a subtle but profound difference between sharing and giving. Modern ears often treat the words as interchangeable, but they represent opposing moral postures toward the world. G. K. Chesterton once described this difference vividly: sharing is a collectivist act, a gesture without full participation of the heart, while giving is personal, covenantal, and rooted in freedom. In the act of giving, the owner, the receiver, and God stand in relationship. Sharing, by contrast, presumes a kind of impersonal common ownership in which no one truly possesses and, therefore, no one truly offers.
Socialists, as Chesterton observed, are “collectivists in their proposals but communists in their ideals.” To them, sharing comes easily, because it dissolves the idea of property altogether. Yet that very dissolution robs generosity of its soul. Giving begins with the acknowledgment that what one owns is one’s own—and that to part with it is both a sacrifice and an act of love.
This distinction explains why government cannot give in the moral sense. When the state collects taxes and redistributes funds through welfare or education programs, it meets a material need—but not a spiritual one. It acts as a broker, not as a benefactor. Charity requires intent and self-offering; it lifts both giver and receiver toward grace. Bureaucracy cannot do that. It can supply food or shelter, but not communion of souls. That is why acts of government may relieve poverty but cannot redeem it.
I learned something of this lesson in my youth. My first job was in a meat packing plant, later at its adjoining restaurant. One of the workers, a Romanian immigrant named John Maaco, took a liking to me and often invited me to his home for Sunday dinners. The meals were magnificent—lavish spreads that spoke of warmth and belonging. When I heard years later that John had been fired, I was indignant. I called the plant’s owner, a friend’s father, and told him exactly what I thought of his decision.
The man listened patiently, then said quietly, “John has been stealing from the plant for years. Those Sunday dinners you attended were made with our product. I asked him to stop. He would not.”
The conversation stopped me cold. John had not been giving—he had been sharing. And he was sharing what was not his to give. Only the owner could have made those gifts.
Since then, I have seen that same pattern play out in other settings. In the military, the practice was nicknamed cumshaw: trading or giving away equipment that didn’t belong to us. It was, one might say, an informal economy built on borrowed authority and blurred accountability. The same dynamic appears in business or politics when managers offer favors, discounts, or promises from company resources as if they were their own. It may look like generosity, but it is, in truth, an appropriation. One cannot gift what one does not own.
What troubles me is how common this moral confusion has become. The language of “sharing” masks what is, at bottom, a transfer of possession without consent. Whether in politics, commerce, or community life, such acts erode the moral foundation of ownership—the recognition that property entails both right and responsibility.
When I was young, I mistook anger for righteousness and sentiment for justice. I thought the owner of the plant had wronged a kind man. Only later did I understand that real charity involves respect for the created order of things: the integrity of labor, the dignity of ownership, and the freedom to give freely. To share what belongs to another is not an act of love. It is, at best, confusion, at worst, corruption.
Giving, when rightly understood, is the sanctification of ownership. It transforms possession into communion. It invites the giver to partake in grace and the receiver to taste gratitude. Sharing, detached from ownership, drains both of meaning. One uplifts the soul; the other merely redistributes the spoils.
