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Resolved: It Is Immoral to Pursue Extravagant Wealth
Leah Libresco is one of the most interesting writers in the blogosphere. After graduating from Yale with a degree in mathematics, she matriculated into the real world. She started a blog on the Patheos atheist channel that shot to the top of the charts. Libresco was quickly hired by the Huffington Post. She rose to prominence because of her unique way of arguing for the atheist position.
After several years of challenging believers with tough questions, Libresco shocked the blogosphere with her conversion to Catholicism. She now runs the blog Unequally Yoked and writes at FiveThirtyEight. She runs the podcast Fights in Good Faith for Real Life Radio.
I came across a review of her new book, Arriving at Amen: Seven Catholic Prayers That Even I Can Offer, at the American Conservative, and was captivated by the reviewer’s explanation of her quirky and sometimes flat-out weird theological point of view. My curiosity thus piqued, I visited Libresco’s blog, then made my way over to her podcasts, where I found the May 2 edition: What Duties Come with Wealth. It was great fun!
Libresco begins with the famous teaching of St. Basil the Great, who wrote:
When someone steals another’s clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
Using this as a starting point, Libresco moves to a discussion of wealth as power and as opportunity. There’s no question that the rich, particularly the fabulously rich, have enormous power to influence the world by caring for the suffering, or by acquiring enormous control over the lives of their fellow human beings. A man with the wealth to feed the hungry can also enslave the masses by allowing them only a few morsels in exchange for their obedience. This is common in the third world, where corrupt and ruthless men plunder the resources of private charitable organizations and allow only a few scraps to reach the desperate mob. What greater control can any man have than a monopoly on simple survival?
On the opposite side of the coin, the rich possess the power to improve the current state of affairs by giving lavishly to the impoverished or engaging in philanthropic endeavors designed to feed the hungry or cloth the naked. Historically, the rich have been patrons of the arts, preservers of natural beauty, and promoters of literature, art, science, philosophy, and a host of other noble ventures. Of course, the misers have always been with us. Midas has long been condemned for his selfishness. But that takes nothing away from the generous rich.
As I listened, I was reminded that questions about the uses and abuses of wealth have a long pedigree. For Plato and Aristotle, wealth was only a means to the ultimate human end as a rational animal. According to these Greek philosophers, men properly pursue wealth only to the extent that they achieve sufficient comfort to allow for contemplation of the ultimate human good: maximization of the intellectual and moral virtues. Aristotle argued that wealth has only so much value as it promotes health — both material and moral. I suspect that, in the modern idiom, Aristotle would promote an upper middle-class lifestyle: It’s appropriate to have a Mercedes, but maybe not a Ferrari. I vaguely recall that in the Eudemian Ethics, he called the relentless pursuit of money swinish.
Early Christian thinkers often came down on the side of St. Basil. Taking their cue from Jesus, they argued that archetype of the good Christian wealthy man was his willingness to sell his goods, give them to the poor, and follow Him. This didn’t necessarily mean that a Christian was prohibited from becoming rich. After all, Joseph of Arimathea was rich, and he is praised in the Gospel’s for his unselfish act of donating his elaborate tomb to Jesus. The question for a rich Christian is whether he is sufficiently detached from the world that the surrender or loss of his wealth would still leave him blessed.
St. Augustine famously said, “Happy the man who has everything he desires, provided he desires nothing amiss.” One way to interpret Augustine is to apply moral rules to his declaration. For example, we might criticize a man who spends his money on concubines because promiscuity is a consequence of lust, and lust is one of the deadly sins. But we might also consider Augustine’s admonition as a condemnation of excess concern for money as money. To use a modern example, Augustine might have seen the collection of high priced cars as something amiss: a form of idolatry.
In medieval times, great attention was placed on the dangers of excess, especially to the political and legal system. Averroes saw the rise of greed as a danger to the community because — and we see this in our day — wealth can corrupt even the best of men, and they will often use their power to subvert the law, and even impoverish the people, in a search for greater and greater wealth and power.
Aquinas followed Aristotle to some extent by explain that wealth is merely a means to man’s highest good which is blessedness or holiness. For Aquinas, as for Aristotle, wealth was largely a utilitarian tool for achieving perfection, and the pursuit of money for the sake of ever-greater material satisfaction was a dead end for human beings created in the image and likeness of God. Indeed, immoderate pursuit of money may kill the soul:
Whereas in the desire for wealth and for whatsoever temporal goods, the contrary is the case: for when we already possess them, we despise them, and seek others: which is the sense of Our Lord’s words (John 4:13): “Whosoever drinketh of this water,” by which temporal goods are signified, “shall thirst again.” The reason of this is that we realize more their insufficiency when we possess them: and this very fact shows that they are imperfect, and the sovereign good does not consist therein.
Like Augustine and Basil, Aquinas viewed the ownership of property as provisional. Once a man has earned enough to satisfy his needs and acquire appropriate comforts, the rest of his fortune is owned by the poor. The man of means is, therefore, merely a trustee for his suffering brethren. Calvin is reported to have said, “Wealth is like manure; it works best when it is spread, but stinks when it is in one big pile.”
With the dawn of the Enlightenment, the classical view of wealth as solely a means to a higher end was reevaluated, especially by John Locke. The acquisition of property was no longer a mere means to an end, but a component of happiness itself. I don’t want to overstate Locke’s case, especially since it’s been years since I’ve read any of his books, but the famous phrase that man’s rights were “life, liberty and the pursuit of property,” seems a far cry from the views of Aristotle or Aquinas.
Kant, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill all have interesting things to say about wealth, but, because Aristotle, the Christian thinkers, and Locke pretty much set up the problematic, I’ll gloss over them except to quote Kant’s famous line: “We are enriched not by what we possess, but by what we can do without.” I don’t know what Aristotle would say to that, but the Christian thinkers would surely agree.
By comparing the bare bones of all the arguments about wealth found in the forgoing philosopher’s, I arrive at the question: which view is correct?
Is, as in Aristotle, the pursuit of wealth only a means to the final end of man, and hence the relentless pursuit of money and the things it buys, contrary to man’s ultimate good and therefore immoral?
Does accumulated wealth belong ultimately to others, and therefore as in Aquinas, held only in trust, which means that a preoccupation with wealth as a good in itself, immoral?
Is, as in Locke, the acquisition of wealth a good in itself?
I state these questions based on my own somewhat idiosyncratic reading of these thinkers, so the reader should feel free to argue against my interpretation — especially since I’ve not gone back to read them in detail because this post isn’t designed to be scholarly (and because I’m lazy).
I tend toward Aquinas’ view that property is a gift from God, and that life is stewardship, which requires not only the conservation of the things of the world, but also demands that whatever we have is to be used in the service of others. I would add, however, that such service comes in all shapes and sizes. While we might criticize Bill Gates for hanging on to so much wealth, we should also see that he has arguably lifted millions out of poverty, something he could not have done had he spread his earnings solely by giving them away. After all, from a purely material point of view, Gates has contributed far more to the common good than Mother Theresa.
Lastly, I must confess to an inherent hypocrisy in my position. I live a comfortable life. I have relatively few wants, so what money I have at my disposal is somewhat more than I need. I don’t give away most of my excess, and if a million dollars suddenly fell into my lap, I’d probably find more personal uses than I might give away.
I offer this post as a way to while away the weekend. If you have nothing better to do, I invite you to weigh in. If you do have better plans, you are doubly blessed.
So how about it? Is it immoral to pursue extravagant wealth?
Published in Culture, General, Religion & Philosophy
Perhaps I misread your post but did not take it as a discussion specific to capitalism. Throughout history people have sought to accumulate wealth both in pre-capitalist times and in systems other than capitalism – for instance, we’ve seen enormous wealth accumulated within socialist, communist, fascist, monarchical, religious and authoritarian regimes as well as in societies built upon plunder.
The ancient philosophers, Jesus included, were speaking and writing about a time when life was nasty, brutish, and short, and poverty was the condition of virtually all but a privileged few. If it won’t ruffle too many feathers, I’ll call them the 99% and the 1% respectively.
There was no way, not hard work, not inheritance, not intellectual brilliance, not entrepreneurial spirit, for the 99% to rise out of poverty. So, the best advice to give them to help them lead a happy life was to focus on the things that make life worth living, but that don’t require wealth, because, Mr. 99%, you aren’t ever going to have any.
Today conditions are different. Any American with brains and ambition, no matter how poor his roots, can acquire sufficient wealth to lead a middle class life. And, even without brains, just with ambition, he could lead a working class life affluent beyond the dreams of the ancient poor. Even without ambition, he need not starve in our social safety net world.
So how much money should a person earn, and of that, what portion should he keep for himself?
It strikes me that there is no limit to how much a person can earn, and that morality doesn’t enter into it. He’s by definition producing something that others are willing to pay for, and that’s got to be a good thing….
How much to give to the poor? (continued)
It’s no doubt better to give to the needy if that is one’s inclination. But I wouldn’t criticize an affluent man too much for keeping most of his wealth for himself. He’s not making any other person worse off by his economic activity. In fact, the opposite is true.
But then, I will honor the man who quietly gives of his excess wealth (or of his time) to help those who cannot help themselves.
In one of my favorite films, “I Remember Mama,” part of the drama centers around the cantankerous, and presumably wealthy, Uncle Chris. Most of the family only puts up with him because they hope to receive that wealth upon his death. It’s only Mama, the heroine of the story, who seems to really love the old man, and accept him. At his death bed the family discover that Uncle Chris has given all his money away to pay for surgeries for children who needed operations to allow them to gain the ability to walk. He kept a little book with entries such as: “John W. $800. Walks now…”
It makes me cry just to think of it.
This has been one my my biggest frustrations with Obama, And really all the Democrats since the Woodstock Kids came of age and took over. They talk as if we’re in feudal Europe or the caste system of India. They act like people are born into a class forever with no possibility of moving up, so they get the government to support them, thereby almost surely seeing to it they never will get out of poverty. They hope nobody will notice we are in AMERICA. Makes me want to run around the house slamming doors.
The Bible addresses this from the perspective of the rich man — Ecclesiastes. It’s not just for the 99%. (Besides… God is not surprised by 21st-century America.)
It also makes quite clear that there is a responsibility towards those who could not provide for themselves. But there’s no percentage, no amount. It’s left to the conscience. If a person loves God and cares about others, the giving will happen.
Here are two quotes from Rand — from here — that seem to belie your claim that her highest aim was material (though she believed these ends must be achieved materially, in a material world):
“Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work—pride is the result.”
“By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man—every man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.”
Those are spiritual ends.
Protection plans are not bad things just because the people who sell them profit from them, perhaps even more so than they do from the thing being protected.
I don’t buy a protection plan for everything, but I do for some things. It’s possible that the plan is a good deal for both parties. Say I buy an iPhone for $600 and a protection plan for $40. Let’s assume a 10% chance that I will break the phone and need to make use of the plan. My expected value on the plan is (600)(.1) = $60. I get an expected savings of $60 for a price of $40. Over time, such plan purchases make me better off. And, I get the peace of mind of knowing that I won’t have to come up with another $600 if the thing breaks.
The company, meanwhile, receives my $40 and faces the same probability of having to pay out. But it’s cost for a replacement is only, say, $200, not the retail price of $600. Thus, it receives $40 and pays out, on average, (200)(.1) = $20. That’s enough to pay the sales person $10 and still make a $10 profit.
Everybody wins. That’s capitalism.
Salud, amor, y pesetas, y tiempo para disfrutarlas.
One of the biggest misconceptions about wealthy individuals is that they are “hoarding” their money. In the modern west, this is nonsense. They don’t have piles of cash under their mattresses. They invest their money in enterprises that provide goods and services that people want and need. They do much more good for others by doing so than if they simply gave their money away.
Giving to the poor almost certainly does increase the happiness of both the giver and receiver. Of course, compelled giving (taxation) might not have a positive effect on the “giver.”
But as Arthur Brooks points out in “The Road to Freedom,” allowing people to experience “earned success” is far superior than leading them into “learned helplessness.” To the extent that the affluent person’s charitable impulses can be channeled into finding ways for the financially less well-off person to obtain earned success, the giving is much more powerful.
That’s one reason why I focus my own charitable impulses on attractive 25 year old women, and I try to ensure that they experience earned success.
It is difficult to spend ones money well, it is far more difficult to spend other people’s money well and it is harder still to to give it away without doing more harm than good. Great wealth like great power removes accountability and gives it a bad rap. Those who made bundles creating products and services we want should continue doing so or move on to new endeavors because that is what they do well and is a better return on their efforts and money than giving money away in areas they know little about, to people they don’t know with the help of people who will be spending other peoples money. But if they really want to start giving great wealth away, they must dedicate more effort, understanding and care to that venture than they did to making the pile in the first place.
Wowsers. It’s almost as if the left doesn’t even need straw-men, anymore.
“Sante, pognon, et mort aux cons,” the French say. Being often profiled as an idiot (even though not in the true sense of “cons,” I hope), Spain is my vacation destination, yes it is.
The hardship of our labors is a consequence of sin (separation from the ease, the harmony, of full grace). But labor itself is good. God enables us and invites us, not forces us, to participate in His acts of love and Creation.
Money is a means of exchanging products and production. It is not evil. But it is worldly and fleeting. It is morally not very different from the food and drink it can buy. God could sate our hunger and thirst without those means. But He chose the means. The difference is that money offers no beauty — no taste or refreshment; only access.
All that we have is to share. Love is the willful joining of good beings, and we are made for love. We are made for beauty. To give or to share, one must first possess. But we possess things of God’s bounty as little children possess things afforded to them by parents. In other words, possession should have purpose… and not just any purpose.
People should be free to own any amount for any benign use. Legality and morality cannot be equal. But we should never cease to argue for moral improvement. A free market, like property itself, provides opportunity for both good and evil.
Yep. Seeing that money is not wealth, but only useful as a medium of exchange clears things up for me. If you see wealth as productive activity, it’s harder to be against its pursuit. Bankers do God’s work getting idle money off its behind. But I somehow doubt we’ll be giving them a parade soon.
I was raised in an upper-middle class family. My dad was a petroleum geologist. His dad was a butcher and a shopkeeper. My grandpa’s dad was a hunter/trapper. A free market enabled my family to gain wealth, education, security, and many opportunities by the graces of God.
All of these can empower or cripple a soul. Affluence tempts us with distractions and can blind us with empty activities. Education can confuse one with countless unreconcilable claims and ideas; it can divorce the mind from the body, leaving one alone in thought rather than engaging in love with others. Security tempts us to stop moving, to stop daring, and to stop battling the evils that will plague our neighbors until the final day.
Those temptations exist by degree and number for all people, rich and poor. God wants both simple and complicated lives. To whom much is given, much is expected.
When does wealth become excessive? It does when it ceases to express love. That cannot be measured by amount. No statistic can measure our faithfulness or determine our course.
The Bible says many things about wealthy people. Don’t cheat your workers, don’t think that earthly wealth matters forever, care for the poor and sick, and much else.
I see little evidence of the “sell everything and give it to the poor” position except in the story of the young ruler. There, though, the young ruler is not reproached for his wealth, but because he is unwilling to give up his wealth to follow Jesus. And even then, in the next paragraph, when his disciples hear the cost of following Jesus and ask how any can be saved, Jesus responds “with people, it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” This interpretation is in keeping with Luke 16, where Jesus says that you cannot love two masters, both God and money. He does not say hate money, he says that it must be subordinate to God.
Furthermore, as has been noted above, there are several injunctions to work -and even the charity of the rich in the Levitical Law requires work from the poor. The harvesters are to leave some of their crop unharvested along the edges of the field for the poor to collect for their own use.
In the modern era, where actual poverty has been largely eradicated (in the first world), the more relevant strictures seem to be the ones governing the working poor. Don’t cheat them, but nor are you to simply keep them in subservient idleness.
For me, it isn’t up to anyone else to determine when another’s wealth is excessive. A few years ago, my nephew came home from his university classes and announced to my sister that he was going to give away his entire trust fund to the poor. He had been made to feel like dirt by a socialist professor who had disparagingly used the term “these trust fund babies” over and over. My sister was horrified, because her husband had died and that money was meant to pay for college.
As for Rand, she can be dismissed as follows: her attack on the “love of money” can be adhered to without modification by a slavemaster. It only works if there is an unstated predicate, hinted at in the ante-penultimate line: that the lover of money must love money in a particular way such that they only love the money they work for and would not willingly sell their soul. As I presume Rand does not believe souls exists, I’ll take her to be meaning some greater moral attachment rather than the intangible being of the individual.
And since much of Rand’s philosophy is about maintaining and praising the ego, and elevating the dignity of the non-altrusitic man, then it follows that, in fact, the person who loves money such that they would alienate -yes, even despise -their own inherent human dignity such that they would sell it, does -in fact -render the love of money the root of all evil.
But seriously, dismantling Rand’s contorted logic is like beating up a child.
She obviously doesn’t believe it because she acknowledges immoral methods of gaining wealth -such as looting and mooching. Thus, there are higher goods than simply gaining money. The question now is what they are.
And to claim that there are moral ways to pursue extravagant wealth implies the existence of immoral ways.
Right — the point is clearly not to teach that accumulated wealth should be given away, but that in this case this man’s wealth stood first in his heart. If he truly were prepared to follow Christ, he would be prepared to give up his wealth.
That does not prove that God always requires that. It is clear from the rest of Scripture that he doesn’t. But the story is there for a reason, and demonstrates that wealth can indeed be a barrier.
And even then, the injunction is first to trade (sell the possessions to those who would value them more than the money they already have), then voluntarily donate the proceeds of the trade.
I suppose acquiring power or leverage over other human beings inevitably increases the opportunities for exercising effective jerkitude toward them. But wealth – at least wealth disconnected from political influence – is fortunately a rather weak form of power over others: it can entice, but not compel. That said, the other opportunity to be a real jerk toward others comes when you’re already convinced you have nothing more to lose. Muggers who find being in prison just about as congenial as being free, suicide bombers… they’re pretty effective exercisers of jerkitude, too.
No! This is what you don’t understand; that unless one has acquired financial wealth by ill gotten means, the process itself promotes and enhances all the very best things about human nature: hard work, sacrifice, fiscal acumen, and understanding of the needs of the market. And all of these things require one to deal with both employees and suppliers in a civilized and ethical manner or a business will not survive. Running a business successfully requires an adherence to a strict set of rules.
BTW, my happiness and self-worth are inseparable from my bank account because money buys my most cherished possession of all – freedom of choice.
Liz- what do you mean when you say “freedom of choice?” In what context?
If you lost all your money tomorrow, would you still be happy with what remained?
People have different priorities and I realize that, but to me this feels sad, Liz, as though you’re missing out on the things I value so much more than that.
I would always love a little more money — to have bigger, nicer living quarters, to not have to scrimp and bargain-shop to keep a professional wardrobe — but I will likely never be close to rich. That is a choice: I love what I do for its own sake, and I love the opportunity to help others — but it does not pay much in 21st century America, and I knew that full well going in. I just would not give it up to have more consumer choices.
That is in no way a condemnation of any capitalist. Of course capitalists can likewise love their work and help people just as much as I do. And if they make tons of money in the process, that’s awesome. And if that helps motivate them, that’s fine. My job depends indirectly on theirs, and vice versa.
It is just that I value other things so much more — things I won’t lose, even if the economy comes to a crashing halt.
A couple of things.
This isn’t intended to be an attack on capitalism–or any other economic system. It is an invitation to debate a moral question. I am certainly not a socialist. As I tried to make clear in the OP, while I am a Thomist on this issue, the means by which a person’s wealth can be used to help the poor is subject to a vast array of approaches. Note that in explaining Aquinas I said:
Second, it would, as I again noted, take a long and scholarly article to put flesh on the bare bones of these thinkers. Aristotle’s ethics has little to do with specific rules. He instead sets out a way of life that he argues is proper to man. You might say that the Nicomachean Ethics is the first self-help book. For a good, short explanation of Aristotle I’d recommend Mortimer Adler’s Aristotle for Everybody.
This is an interesting debate–to me anyway–and I appreciate all the comments as they help me to sharpen my thinking.
Leigh- I know exactly what you mean. I enjoy the financial success healthcare brings, but I really genuinely love what I do. There is the greatest simultaneous satisfaction and frustration at helping an elder patient who is coming to terms with the end of their life and conducting a life review. It reminds me to be patient- that was a tough lesson for me- and to love others the way Christ desires us to. It’s tremendously fulfilling to help someone get better or even save their life. You cannot put a price on that feeling, knowing you’ve saved someone’s life.
Absolutely not and I am not the least bit ashamed to admit it. I would no longer have all the options I have now and would hate it. My husband agrees wholeheartedly and frankly my entire family does too.
We’ve all worked hard in my immediate clan to afford to eat, shop, travel and live wherever we want (within reason of course). We value the freedom to live our lives as we choose and unfortunately, it takes donuts to do so.
This is a very important point, and one that I think Aristotle and Aquinas would agree with. Alasdair McIntyre has one of the best explanations of this in After Virtue. He’s kind of hard to read, but in very sketchy form, I interpret him this way.
We are often prompted to begin an activity for purely external goods, e.g., the money the activity brings. As we learn more and more we come to both a primary and a secondary good–the money AND the learning about the activity. Lastly, we come to love the activity itself. That is an internal good–a good of the soul.
Piano lessons are a case in point. A child may be enticed with an offer to pay him to learn the piano–perhaps by promising a trip to McDonald’s for each successful lesson (is that a reward? It was for my young kids–who had no taste). Eventually, however, he’ll learn the notes, pedals, and begin to play in tune. In the final stage he comes to love the piano in itself and to simply playing will give him joy. That’s the ultimate goal–the piano is a good in itself regardless of compensation.
Another Biblical example of moral wealth is Joshua’s guidance from God to stockpile grain for a coming famine. Many of his neighbors probably demanded extra food from that supply. Why was he being so stingy!
In that case, the purpose of allowing wealth to accumulate was to exercise trust in God who warned of the coming famine. Hording, by contrast, can demonstrate absence of trust in God’s providence.
As much grief as we give liberals for thinking intentions are everything, it’s worth remembering that results aren’t everything either. Intentions matter.
So money represents the freedom to choose Tiffany’s over Shane Co. and Mercedes over VW? That ability to choose is your most valued thing in life?