THE evil is not in wealth in itself — in its command over material
things; it is in the possession of wealth while others are steeped in poverty;
in being raised above touch with the life of humanity, from its work and
its struggles, its hopes and its fears, and above all, from the love that
sweetens life, and the kindly sympathies and generous acts that strengthen
faith in man and trust in God. Consider how the rich see the meaner side
of human nature; how they are surrounded by flatterers and sycophants; how
they find ready instruments not only to gratify vicious impulses, but to
prompt and stimulate them; how they must constantly be on guard lest they
be swindled; how often they must suspect an ulterior motive behind kindly
deed or friendly word; how, if they try to be generous, they are beset by
shameless beggars and scheming impostors; how often the family affections
are chilled for them, and their deaths anticipated with the ill-concealed
joy of expectant possession. The worst evil of poverty is not in the want
of material things, but in the stunting and distortion of the higher qualities.
So, though in another way, the possession of unearned wealth likewise stunts
and distorts what is noblest in man.
God's commands cannot be evaded with impunity. If it be God's command
that men
shall earn their bread by labor, the idle rich must suffer. And they do. — The
Condition of Labor, an Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
IT seems to me that in a condition of society in which no one need fear poverty,
no one would desire great wealth — at least no one would take the trouble
to strive and to strain for it as men do now. For, certainly, the spectacle of
men who have only a few years to live, slaving away their time for the sake of
dying rich, is in itself so unnatural and absurd, that in a state of society
where the abolition of the fear of want had dissipated the envious admiration
with which the masses of men now regard the possession of great riches, whoever
would toil to acquire more than he cared to use would be looked upon as we would
now look on a man who would thatch his head with half a dozen hats, or walk around
in the hot sun with an overcoat on. When everyone is sure of being able to get
enough, no one will care to make a packhorse of himself. — Progress & Poverty — Book
IX, Chapter 2: Effects of the Remedy, upon distribution and thence on production
MEN instinctively admire virtue and truth, but the sting of want and the fear
of want make them even more strongly admire the rich and sympathize with the
fortunate. It is well to be honest and just, and men will commend it; but he
who by fraud and injustice gets him a million dollars will have more respect
and admiration and influence, more eye service and lip service, if not heart
service, than he who refuses it. The one may have his reward in the future; he
may know that his name is writ in the Book of Life, and that for him is the white
robe and the palm branch of the victor against temptation; but the other has
his reward in the present. His name is writ in the list of "our substantial citizens;" he
has the courtship of men and the flattery of women; the best pew in the church
and the personal regard of the eloquent clergyman, who in the name of Christ
preaches the Gospel of Dives, and tones down into a meaningless flower of. eastern
speech the stern metaphor of the camel and the needle's eye. He may be a patron
of arts, a Maecenas to men of letters; may profit by the converse of the intelligent,
and be polished by the attrition of the refined. His alms may feed the poor,
and help the struggling, and bring sunshine into desolate places; and noble public
institutions commemorate, after he is gone, his name and his fame. It is not
in the guise of a hideous monster, with horns and tail, that Satan tempts the
children of men, but as an angel of light. His promises are not alone of the
kingdoms of the world, but of mental and moral principalities and powers. He
appeals not only to the animal appetites, but to the cravings that stir in man
because he is more than an animal. — Progress & Poverty — Book
IX, Chapter 4, Effects of the Remedy: Of the Changes that would be Wrought in
Social Organization and Social Life
BUT is there not some line the recognition of which will enable us to say
with something like scientific precision that this man is rich and that man
is poor; some line of possession which will enable us truly to distinguish
between rich and poor in all places and conditions of society; a line of
the natural mean or normal possession, below which in varying degrees is
poverty, and above which in varying degrees is wealthiness? It seems to me
that there must be. And if we stop to think of it, we may see that there
is. If we set aside for the moment the narrower economic meaning of service,
by which direct service is conveniently distinguished from the indirect service
embodied in wealth, we may resolve all the things which directly or indirectly
satisfy human desire into one term service, just as we resolve fractions
into a common denominator. Now is there not a natural or normal line of the
possession or enjoyment of service? Clearly there is. It is that of equality
between giving and receiving. This is the equilibrium which Confucius expressed
in the golden word of his teaching that in English we translate into "reciprocity." Naturally
the services which a member of a human society is entitled to receive from
other members are the equivalents of those he renders to others. Here is
the normal line from which what we call wealthiness and what we call poverty
take their start. He who can command more service than he need render,
is rich. He is poor, who can command less service than he does render or
is
willing to render: for in our civilization of today we must take note of
the monstrous fact that men willing to work cannot always find opportunity
to work. The one has more than he ought to have; the other has less. Rich
and poor are thus correlatives of each other; the existence of a class of
rich involves the existence of a class of poor, and the reverse; and abnormal
luxury on the one side and abnormal want on the other have a relation of
necessary sequence. To put this relation into terms of morals, the rich are
the robbers, since they are at least sharers in the proceeds of robbery;
and the poor are the robbed. This is the reason, I take it, why Christ, Who
was not really a man of such reckless speech as some Christians deem Him
to have been, always expressed sympathy with the poor and repugnance of the
rich. In His philosophy it was better even to be robbed than to rob. In the
kingdom of right doing which He preached, rich and poor would be impossible,
because rich and poor in the true sense are the results of wrong-doing. And
when He said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," He simply put in the
emphatic form of Eastern metaphor a statement of fact as coldly true as the
statement that two parallel lines can never meet. Injustice cannot live where
justice rules, and even if the man himself might get through, his riches — his
power of compelling service without rendering service — must of necessity
be left behind. If there can be no poor in the kingdom of heaven, clearly
there can be no rich. And so it is utterly impossible in this, or in any
other conceivable world, to abolish unjust poverty, without at the same time
abolishing unjust possessions. This is a hard word to the softly amiable
philanthropists, who, to speak metaphorically, would like to get on the good
side of God without angering the devil. But it is a true word nevertheless. — The
Science of Political Economy unabridged:
Book II, Chapter 19, The Nature of Wealth: Moral Confusions as to Wealth • abridged:
Part II, Chapter 15, The Nature of Wealth: Moral Confusions as to Wealth
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