This is an essay I wrote for a ToK class a few years ago.
Last week’s discussion on the moral obligations of former imperial powers in respect of reparations for complicity in impoverishment and negative discrimination faced by the colonized regions and their descendents, evolved into the morality of wealth. Views on this were expressed in what I consider immoderate terms from both sides in the debate. Since balance is one of the attributes required by the Knower in ToK, I have composed the following essay. Whether I have achieved balance or not is up to you and probably depends on your background. Certainly the people from different backgrounds who have agreed to read the essay have opinions in line with their backgrounds. That said, the academics I have asked (2) have found it a balanced piece.
One of the main points in The Evolving Self (Csikszentmihalyi, 1994) is that we should consciously evolve away from a lot of our basic biology, since these bits are anachronistic and cause many unhelpful causational counter-currents. ‘Evolve’, in this context, is defined more broadly than the strictly physiological and to include culturization around the awkward bits in order to promote sustainability through ‘complexity’ and suppress the ‘complicated’
The problem is ‘The Selfish Gene’(Dawkins, 1976). In Dawkins famous book the idea that we are just a support system for the preservation and propagation of our genes was made. Everything we do from the time we are born is geared to those ends, even the acquisition and exhibition of wealth.
Firstly, to paraphrase Lord Prof. Robert Winston (Winston, 2002), wealth is sexy. Behaviourally, it is an attraction to strength and hence the likelihood of survival. Furthermore, wealth in our society is an encouraged aspiration summed up by Michael Douglas (Gordon Gecko) in ‘Wall Street’ (Stone, 1987), “Greed is good!” and by advertising slogans like, ‘Geiz ist geil.’
So, is wealth a necessary adjunct to The Theory of Evolution in The Origin of Species (Darwin, 1859) suggesting that wealth is part of the human condition, which in turn suggests it is a human right? This, in fact, is used to defend the rights of the wealthy to be wealthy, sometimes suggesting that the critics of wealth would deny a person the opportunity to survive better and get ahead of the crowd. Another argument in support of the rights of wealth is that the wealthy are very often wealth creators far in excess of their own rewards.
To extrapolate the argument of wealth’s function as evolutionary behaviour, what is often seen as the vulgar vanity of conspicuous consumerism is actually natural and necessary. Seen from this perspective, it is more pertinent to ask why wealth’s critics find it so distasteful?
Wealth’s automatic, often reflexive answer is that it is very often a case of envy on the part of the differently wealth-endowed (to coin a phrase, albeit satirically). This argument suffers the disadvantage of being seen by those educated enough (in its broadest sense) to have a fulfilling life, at ordinary levels of wealth, as compounding the vulgarity exponentially. In this sense, wealth needs envy and seeks to demean through it. Conversely (and perversely), the argument has the distinct advantage of being largely true, in my experience.
From an ecological sustainability point of view, the inexorable pursuit of increased wealth is madness in a global economy at its most fundamental level, based as it is on consumption on non-renewable resources. Imagine, for example, the draw on natural resources that would be occasioned if everyone in the poor South lives as well as the rich North. Unless, of course, the rich North in some way, needs the poor South to stay poor, in which case this argument falls down, but, if it is so, it raises a disturbing moral question for all of us in the rich North.
The purpose of taxation is respect of these inequalities, is to make tax-payers financially accountable for the benefits the tax-payer derives form the tax-paying community. It helps maintains social order by assuaging the social ill effects of inequality. How much tax that should be paid is a very tricky question in a functioning democracy. Political parties tend to be oriented towards different poles of wealth and so the burden of tax is often shifted depending on which party forms the executive. In our society, taxing the wealthy too highly promotes capital flow out of the area with concomitant eroding of the overall wealth of the community. This was seen in the UK when the Labour party Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1964 raised tax on the wealthy, thereby putting into practice his promise to, “Squeeze the rich till the pips squeaked.” This policy was also seen as spiteful since taxes like Death Duties often reduced comfortable middle class families markedly, not only materially, but also socially, having no longer the wealth to qualify for their former social milieu but without the social network with other members of their new social class. People who grew up under these conditions are often filiopietistical as a defence to the challenges of their new situation.
Shifting the burden of tax towards the less wealthy has the advantage of being a greater encouragement for capital to stay in the community, but exacerbates inequalities with all the social ills that suggests.
It is not just a question of what level of tax is practical, but also of what is seen to be fair. Where has this idea of ‘fairness’ come from? Why is it so attractive, especially on an emotional level? This attraction seems to fly in the face of Natural Selection, but not if the survival function of the community is considered, where it seems that empathy is the directing impulse.
Historically the notion of fairness has been assimilated into religion where ideas of ‘Holy Poverty’ (Armstrong, 1998) are found. This has led to aphorisms like, “religion is the opiate of the proletariat/people” since it is seen as a method of exploitative control by the wealthy. There are many notable examples of the wealthy deliberately renouncing their wealth in accordance with these ideas, but their very notoriety is a function of their rarity. More notable still is the phenomenon of philanthropy that allows the philanthropist a form of immortality as a benefactor of humanity. In this sense it could be viewed as a version of ‘brand positioning’ and as a mechanism to confirm their wealth and power.
It is also these ideas of fairness that gave rise to some of the ideas of the Enlightenment, which, in turn nurtured ideas in Rights of Man (Paine, 1791), A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Wollstonecraft, 1792), The Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1776) and the ideas of liberty, individualism and independence fostering the idea that all are created equal. It is the idea of fairness that causes resentment of the unequal distribution of wealth when it is considered that 2% of the global population owns 50% of the wealth, according to the BBC.
The word ‘exploitative’ was used earlier in the negative context of current vernacular. This suggests that any advantage gained is wrong. Under these circumstances exploitation should not be seen as a polarised interaction, but as a continuum between the poles. This gives rise to notions of the win-win situations of good or fair exploitation and the bad or unfair exploitation that has given us so many of the Globe’s ills. It is the bad variety that is often insinuated by the critics of wealth as to its origin (O’Rourke, 1990)
Conversely, it is also argued by wealth that it is fairly deserved. In this argument there are echoes of religion when wealth cites the Lord looks after His own and the Enlightenment idea of utility exemplified by the Victorian best-seller, ‘Self-Help’ (Smiles, 1859). This suggestion of divine favour found form in ‘The Divine Right of Kings’ by James I of England and VI of Scotland and in how the imperial Indian Civil Service saw itself, The Heaven Born (Shama, 2002). It is this sense of Goodness that perhaps most upsets critics of wealth along with the assumed extra rights and privileges that it is seen as affording. The playing along with this meme is what we all do to some extend in order to survive. The corollary to this is that poverty, no matter of what degree or relativity, is seen as shameful suggesting that being a good consumer is synonymous with being a good person.
What level of wealth differential that is sustainable within a civil society is probably a function of culture. For example, in pre-Thatcher Britain, the inheritors of the middle class morality of industry, discretion and moderation applauded in the pages of Self-Help (Smiles, 1859), it is probably true to say that conspicuous consumption was more sneered upon as vulgar of itself and for the aggrandisement it is suspected to be its cause, whereas material success and its display in the US was seen as more respectable, “If you got it flaunt it!” as Zero Mostel says in The Producers (Brooks, 1968).
Driven by this biological imperative towards wealth, it is easy to see why it is for many the prime motivator and raison d’etre. Unfortunately for wealth, we have also evolved a big brain that empowers us to analyse critically our circumstances. It is in this sphere that we apply reason that suggests that the inexorable growth that fuels wealth will be injurious to the planet, based as it is on commodity. The point of Csikszentmihalyi s book was that humans have outgrown the point where wealth is necessary and becomes a hazard. It is in this sense that we must evolve around our biological imperative to be richer. This begs the question of what we could replace wealth as the currency of power, unless, of course if all were equally empowered. Some still hold these truths to be self-evident.
This ecologically based argument is Malthusian in essence and so is largely discredited as Malthus’ ideas of the limitations of carrying-capacities of eco-systems. The discrediting of this theory was based on technology and discovery overcoming the prevailing limitations. This discrediting is simple-minded in that it assumes that a change in conditions of a system argues against the existence of the system itself. So, unless technology and discovery helps us overcome our current carrying-capacity, our economic systems based on inexorable growth, we will have a bumpy ride ahead, given that we all need to eat and have shelter, we will never get away from economic systems based on physical commodity.
In conclusion, without the attraction of wealth, our economic systems and the comfort most of us enjoy in the developed world break down, but to maintain social cohesion that provides the milieu in which wealth is generated, the wealth differentials must be moderated by fiscal and philanthropic measures so that inequalities of opportunities are levelled to overcome the threshold of the ‘poverty trap’. We all have rights and responsibilities, but it seems to be fashionable to emphasise our own rights, but the responsibilities of others. Seen in this light, wealth has the responsibility not to flaunt material success to the point where it demeans the sense of self-worth and dignity of the less well materially endowed and to acknowledge that although a lot of wealth is based on personal industry and ability, a lot of it is based on dumb luck and bad exploitation. Similarly the less wealthy have the responsibility to acknowledge that a lot of their personal degree of comfort owes a debt to the existence of wealth. To return to Csikszentmihalyi’s thesis that we should recognise the ‘complicatedness’, chaos and conflict engendered by our biological and evolutionary imperatives that have caused us to be where we are today, may well be counter-productive for the further development of the race. This applies as much to the pre-eminence of wealth as life’s raison d’être as it does to man’s impulse to procreate as much as possible. This suggests that other attributes of humanity should be as highly valued as wealth.
References :
Armstrong, K., (1998) Holy War, Random House, New York
Brooks, M., (1968) The Producers, MGM
Csikszentmihalyi, M., (1993) The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium, HarperCollins, New York
Darwin, C., (1859) The Origin of Species, John Murray, London.
Dawkins, R., (1976) The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Paine, T., (1791) Rights of Man, J. Johnson, London
Shama, S. (2002) A History of Britain Vol 3 1776 – 2000, The Fate of Empire, BBC Worldwide Ltd. London
Smiles, S (1859) Self-Help, Riverside, Cambridge
Smith, A., (1776) The Wealth of Nations, Strahan; and Cadell London
Winston, R., (2002) Human Instinct, Bantam Press, London
Wollstonecraft, M., (1792) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, J. Johnson, London
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