Seventy-five men will live at the cost of the twenty-five men, grhastha. Our Vedic civilization is that in the society there are four divisions: the brahmacari, the grhastha, the vanaprastha, and the sannyasi. Suppose there are hundred men in a village or in a place. The society is divided into four asramas: brahmacari, grhastha, vanaprastha… This is material calculation. Suppose if there are hundred men, seventy-five men are to be considered brahmacari, vanaprastha and sannyasi. So these seventy-five men will live at the cost of the twenty-five men, grhastha. Grhastha has to give alms to the brahmacari, to the vanaprastha, and to the sannyasa. Just see how nice communism. The one twenty-five-percent group, they are earning, and they are maintaining seventy-five men.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.25.8, Bombay, November 8, 1974