Dakshina Chetti
CC- Hausse
(December 8, 2016)
Columbia University
Monetary Means: A Consideration of Wealth
and its Values to the Self and Society
In
his second treatise, John Locke aptly summarizes the appeal of a monetary
system, describing it as “some lasting thing that men might keep without
spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would take in exchange for the truly
useful, but perishable supports of life”1. As such, money has since
long introduced into mainstream society as a fungible good, enabling
individuals to accumulate money and items of monetary value so as to reap
various benefits for themselves, able to exchange these possessions for other
wanted materials. Money, as incentivizing force, is largely beneficial to the
individual and society, functioning as a system by which man is recompensed for
his labor. The possession of money is also valuable in the way that it enables a
person to provide for her basic needs, furnishing her with the needed security
to follow greater pursuits beyond mere survival. Nonetheless, there are several
notable detrimental aspects to wealth, found both in the excessive possession
or the complete lack of it; the former leads man to become inward-looking,
prioritizing himself before all else; whilst the latter strips him of his means
to acquire the resources needed for his labor, facilitating his recourse to
unlawful behavior. Its values and dangers considered, the ideal of wealth is thus
to be found in its moderation, for which various systems exist in society,
tempering man’s ability to uncontrollably accumulate wealth—to his benefit that
of his community.
A
primary benefit of wealth rests in its wide-ranging incentive value; it impels
man to work and to dedicate attention to the quality of his labor, all the
whilst allowing him to pursue higher endeavors beyond subsistence, to the
benefit of the individual and society. First, it’s important to see money as a universally
translating scale of rewards, by which individuals are recompensed for their
work and toil. The reward system is adjustable, such that the amount that
someone works—inclusive of the effort or resources required in said endeavor—can
be matched by the compensation they receive. In essence, man is motivated to
labor in his craft because he knows he will be fittingly rewarded in the form
of a “wage”. As an active worker, the individual personally benefits from the
monetary reward and contributes to his community’s work force—thereby promoting
the society’s economic development and augmenting its prosperity. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates concedes that within
the ideal city, monetary reward is
employed as a recompense to labor, as he discusses someone “who is by nature a
craftsman or some other kind of moneymaker”, equating the two.2
Socrates,
throughout his conversation with Thrasymachus, also acknowledges the point that
people require a motivating force. Discussing the benefits that the craftsman
derives from his craft, he puts forth that “no craft or rule provides for its
own advantage” and that “anyone who intends to practice his craft well never
does or orders what is best for himself—but what is best for his subject”,
citing this as the reason behind the necessity of wages for the laboring class.3
In fact, this point is reiterated when Socrates first conjures up the City of Pigs
(prior to his conception of the Kallipolis) wherein he refers to the “wage-earning” men of the city—the craftsman and other
skilled workers—who are responsible for society’s production of the “right quality”
and “right quantity” of goods.4 Wages, as monetary recompense, are
portrayed as incentivizing for the citizens of this city to produce goods of a
favorable standard and volume. As such, monetary wealth is responsible for
maintaining a workforce most conducive to that particular City’s health and self-sustainability,
as it benefits from a greater supply of resources.
Another
closely-related benefit of wealth is that it allows and incentivizes the
individual to pursue higher enterprises beyond survival—endeavors that can be
of benefit to her society, given that she already has the security of being
able to provide for her fundamental needs. A relevant motivational theory, Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs, developed in 1943, states that there exists a pyramidal
classification of human necessities, with the largest, most fundamental
levels of needs at the bottom, having to with physical survival.5
This is the need for food, drink, shelter, sleep and oxygen. According to
the theory, the most basic level of necessity has to be secured before an individual can strongly desire (or focus her motivation
upon) any sort of higher-level desires, such personal goals, or
self-actualization (wherein the individual realizes her potential). We see
a variation of this phenomenon presented in Locke’s The Second Treatise of Civil Government, when he discusses the
concept of men turning to civil society so that they may obtain security in terms of their properties—the
first and foremost of the properties being their lives.6 Here, we
find that man’s survival is cemented as his ultimate priority, and that his
actions are primarily directed towards the preservation of his life. Though
Locke speaks of security in the context of the incentive of joining a civil
society, the concept of the primacy of one’s survival and the need for security in assuring survival is naturally
extrapolated. The constant occupation with survival fully consumes man’s time and
working power, whereas wealth unburdens him of this, such that he can attend to
other endeavors. Thus, the adjusted perspective is that money (rather than
civil society) is the basis for development past the subsistence level of life.
Wealth,
though potent in its motivational power to the individual, can also prove to be
a detriment to both the self and society. The dangers of wealth are principally
observed as products of extremities in wealth, whether in opulence and excess
of material prosperity, or in the dearth of it. Being devoid of wealth means
that one’s chief focus is survival, as previously referenced in the discussion
of fundamental needs and Maslow’s hierarchy. Living in subsistence, a product
of being bereft of wealth, is comorbid with inciting individuals to act
unlawfully, to the ultimate detriment of the functioning of his society. If an individual isn’t able to provide for
their basic needs, such that they do not possess security in terms of
fundamental goods, like shelter, nutrition, and clothing, there exists a
greater incentive for them to resort to extreme and/or unlawful measures in
order to acquire these possessions or to secure the funds needed to procure them.
Because they are consistently struggling, individuals have less of an incentive
to restrain themselves from unfairly taking advantage of other individuals. In
the Republic, Cephalus makes
reference to the benefits of wealth, citing that “wealth can do a lot to save
us from having to cheat or deceive someone against our will”.7
According to him, whilst wealth may not make a man just, it contributes to
giving an individual less incentive to defraud others for want of a better
life, or to solution his lack of necessary resources. If this is true, one can
expect that the absence of wealth would do a lot to make one more likely to
commit these impermissible behaviors.
In a contemporary situation, this phenomenon can
be evidenced by the surge in crime rates observed in individuals living below
the poverty line, who struggle to acquire the goods necessary to provide for
basic necessities. In the US alone, persons in poor families and homes at or
below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (39.8 per 1,000) demonstrated twice the
rate of violent victimization as those from high-income households (16.9 per
1,000) from 2008 to 2012.8 Naturally, there are a number of other
compounding effects—in terms of the incidence of crime—that originate from
lacking wealth aside from the
pressure of survival, but the correlation is nonetheless observable between the
enjoyment and security individuals derived a certain standard of living
(wherein their basic needs are provided for), and their likelihood of acting
within the bounds of their society’s imposed rules.
Another
individual and societal detriment of [the lack of] wealth is related to
shortness of purchasing power, such that individuals struggle to provide for
their basic needs, furthermore failing to buy the tools required for their
craft of labor. Being unable to acquire the necessary resources to effectively perform
their jobs, individuals are thus precluded from fulfilling their potentials as wage-earning workers in a society.
This particular example is addressed in Socrates’ dialogue with Adeimantus
about the corrupting effect of poverty on workers, stating that “And surely if
poverty prevents him from having tools or any of the other he needs for his
craft, he’ll produce poorer work…”.9 Generally speaking, an
impoverished artist or worker is unable to procure the tools necessary for his
artistic enterprise to persist; as such, he becomes trapped into a vicious
cycle of monetary deprivation, at the detriment of the individual, and the
society whose economic prosperity depends on his craft.
On
the other side of the spectrum, the excess of wealth is dangerous to the
individual and to the community in that it encourages man to become
self-centered, leading him to wrongly prioritize his own desires before all
others. The Qur’an warns man, in
Surah 63, “Believers, do not let your wealth and your children distract you from
remembering God: those who do so will be the ones who lose”, reminding him that
there exist nonnegotiable priorities beyond self-gratification.10 When he forgets god, his foremost
priority, he loses his standing as a man of good faith, imperiling his
salvation to his personal detriment. If not putting himself before his god, man
is also at risk, then, of putting himself before his fellow men, looking
towards personal gain rather than public good. Plato highlights the necessity
of looking towards the public good in the Republic,
given that the Guardians, as the class responsible for the management of the
society, have as their purpose to ensure the public good without private
interest. The danger in the excess accumulation of wealth is distortion in
man’s priorities.
Ultimately,
a degree of moderation is best—a form of regulation of wealth—in order to
promote the best state (i.e. for the advantage of society), but also for the
individual. Moderation in wealth is encouraged in Plato’s Republic when he speaks of the craftsmen and common populace,
wherein he finds fault in their having both excess and dearth of wealth.11
Therefore, he advocates for the ideality of a middle ground, a concept close to
Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean, put forth in Nichomachean Ethics, which regards virtue is a middle state between
excess and insufficiency. When addressing wealth, Aristotle states that “It
seems to be the mean with regard to wealth; for the liberal
man is praised…with regard to the giving and taking of wealth, and
especially in respect of giving”.12 The
Aristotelian concept of Liberality being the correct disposition with regards
to money, requiring both the receiving and the giving away of
money. However, in legitimate
application, Aristotle’s conclusions do not necessitate some average range of
wealth that individuals must possess; rather,
they uphold that there is such thing as an excessive “level” of wealth, beyond
which an individual should engage in certain behaviors that moderate her
material prosperity.
Moderation
of wealth, as a moral responsibility, is advocated through religion and its
directives, such that the practicing individual may have a doctrinal imperative
to act virtuously, by making his contribution to the “have-nots”. One such
moderating behavior is charitable action, which involves an individual with a
notable accumulation of wealth choosing to give a portion of it away. Muslims
are compelled to be charitable, as in Surah two, when the prophet says that “God
blights usury, but blesses charitable deeds with multiple increase”.13
In the Qur’an, individuals are allowed
to have material possessions, but should supplement it by charitable action,
which is a way to exercise moderation in the accumulation of wealth—and to
practice a good deed. However, charitable action is an example of a personally
dictated, voluntary form of moderation, which means that there is no enforced
regulation of one’s compliance with these commands of altruism, nor is there
necessarily a specific “amount” of wealth which is designated for the
individual to donate. As such, an extremely wealthy individual may choose not to engage in philanthropic or
charitable action, or be charitable in an amount that is markedly disproportionate
to the volume of wealth she has.
Though
there are few, structures do exist within society wherein charity is compulsory,
rather than encouraged. The practice of tithing, enforced by some religious
institutions, obliges an individual to donate a chosen portion of her salary to
the church. Though most churches hold tithing as a voluntary action, Mormons
are required to pay 10% of their gross income to the Mormon Church, and in
Islam, the Zakat (a mandatory almsgiving or religious tax) also operates with a
fixed donation requirement relative to one’s wealth.14 For the
atheists, and those who choose to circumvent religious recommendation, there is
of yet no complete escape. Another mandatory form of ensuring moderation of
wealth is through taxation, as addressed in the Republic, wherein Thrasymachus states that “in matters related to
the city; when taxes are to be paid, a just man pays more on the same
property”.15 Describing taxation payment, he praises the behavior or
increased payment of wealth for those with more possessions, but does not
address the enforcement of this. In terms of actual applications, most taxation
systems have enforced a system wherein the amount that the individual has to
pay an elevated levy, past a certain “bracket” or accumulation of wealth—i.e.
when one is deemed to have an excess of wealth.
Wealth,
as a system, has a demonstrable range of values to the individual, which oft
translate into benefits for the community at large—particularly in the scope of
labor and craft. Though money and material wealth boast several merits, there
are important societal and personal detriments that come from its existence,
residing in both the excess accumulation of money, and the total dispossession
of it. Ultimately, wealth’s disadvantages tend to fall under the greater of
umbrella distortion human perspective, exerting an undue negative influence on
man’s perspective and actions. Moderation, exacted through voluntary and
mandatory behaviors, thus takes center stage as a mediator, orienting individuals
between these extremes, tempering the uncontrolled accumulation of wealth.
These directives, are meant to make man the best individual he can be whilst contributing
to society’s function and progress, though they often go evaded by men through
various forms of inaction or convenient loopholes. Perhaps moderation is,
beyond a way to allay the dangers of wealth, a manner by which we attempt to
reign-in the dangers of man, who left unchecked, becomes consumed by the
extremities born from wealth.
Word Count: 2458
Notes
1.
Locke,
John, and C. B. Macpherson, Second treatise of government (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing, 1980), 284.
*Kindle
reader
2. Plato, G. M. A. Grube, and C. D. C. Reeve, Republic
(Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 1992), 109.
3.
Plato, Republic,
22-23.
4.
Plato, Republic,
46.
5.
Huitt,
Wiliam. "Maslow's hierarchy of needs." Educational psychology
interactive (2004).
6.
Locke,
Second treatise of government, 306.
7.
Plato, Republic,
5.
8.
Berzofsky,
M., L. Couzens, E. Harrell, L. Langton, and H. Smiley-McDonald. "Household
Poverty And Nonfatal Violent Victimization, 2008–2012." (2014).
9.
Plato, Republic,
97.
10. Abdel Haleem, M. A. The Qur'an:
English translation and parallel Arabic text. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010), 374
11. Plato, Republic, 96-97.
12. Aristotle and
W. D. Ross, The Nichomachean ethics (London: Oxford University
Press, 1959), 60
13. The Qur'an, 32
14. The Qur'an, 118
15. Plato, Republic, 20.
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