“He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honour.”Benjamin Franklin · Almanahul sărmanului Richard · 1758 · 1758
A mastered trade is wealth no one can steal from you.
Franklin treats skill and calling as a form of wealth that cannot be stolen or squandered. The mechanism is simple: a marketable ability produces steady income, exactly like land that pays rent. A good carpenter does not depend on one employer, because his work can be sold anywhere. If he loses a job, he recovers his value elsewhere, unlike someone whose only assets are cash or titles.
Franklin adds something the card does not say: a trade is property that grows on its own. Money sits still or melts through inflation. A skill, by contrast, improves every time you use it. Each job brings an extra nuance, a new trick, a problem solved faster. It is like a house that renews itself for free. And if you combine it with a vocation, meaning something you also enjoy doing, work stops being a cost and becomes an investment paid twice: in money and in energy. Think of a cook who cooks at home for pleasure and keeps learning more at work without feeling the effort. But what happens when two people have the same trade and yet one prospers more?
Why it matters It fits anyone torn between a better-paid dead-end job and one that builds real skills, or parents wondering whether funding a practical qualification is worth it.