Money as a supreme concern—Intensity of belief in money—Definition of Contention—The impulses which act as the motive power of money-making—The limitation of human capacities—Money and happiness—Money as responsibility—The national wealth and welfare.
Religion is said to be one of the supreme concerns of the human race, and there can be no doubt that it forces itself into the calculations of every one of us. It is a matter about which we fight and differ, about which we interest ourselves in various degrees in proportion to the development of our spiritual and emotional nature, and which only a minority conscientiously consider to be of vital consequence. But there is another concern which enters equally surely into all our calculations, for which we fight without differing, about which we interest ourselves in various degrees in proportion to the development of our material nature, and which only a small minority consider not to be of vital consequence. After the satisfaction of our animal appetites it is our first preoccupation. To some it presents itself as the very first consideration on which even the satisfaction of their appetites must depend. All great human efforts at progress, whether they issue from religious, political, scientific, social, or economic sources, get checked and thwarted sooner or later, because of the universal acceptance of a dominant principle, so powerful and so insinuating that it permeates the views and convictions of men, whether they be of high or low degree, and irrespective of their creed and nationality. This bond that unites all civilised humanity is not a great uplifting ideal nor a divine inspiration. It has more the nature of a malignant and infectious disease by which we are all contaminated. It can be expressed in one single and familiar word—MONEY—that is to say the unqualified belief in money as a means, money as an end, aim, object, ideal; money as representing the method of securing a greater degree of physical wellbeing, money as power, money as pleasure, money, therefore, as happiness. It is a deep-rooted and at present ineradicable conviction which we hold without doubt and without question. A little money, we argue, is obviously indispensable, a little more money we are all of us continually declaring that we want, a good deal of money we are convinced brings a decided increase in happiness, and a vast amount of money must therefore mean a great power for good.
This belief, which amounts almost to an instinct, may vary in intensity, it may cloak itself under many insidious disguises, but it is very rarely if ever completely absent. It takes all conceivable forms, from undisguised greed to simulated contempt. There are those who devote their lives to amassing more money; there are those who, having sufficient, assume outwardly an indifference as to its power, while they retain inwardly a profound and unwavering faith in it; and there are those who struggle for it so as to avoid social and sometimes even actual death from need of it. It insinuates itself into the minds of men who have no confidence in material advancement because they find that our whole social system is based on this belief, and if they do not want to be left behind in the struggle they must accept the creed.
Not only by individuals separately, but by the people collectively it is accepted as a concern of supreme importance. Our lives, our marriages, and therefore our very birth are regulated by it, our occupations, our industries and our arts, everything but death depends on it, and even death itself can be hastened or postponed by it. So national is the reverence for it that our holidays are not fixed on saints’ days, or to commemorate episodes from the rich part of our history, but they are Bank holidays. The closing of our banks is the one signal that for twenty-four hours we are free.
The multifarious aspects of the theme are most bewildering. As Sir Henry Taylor said, “So manifold are the bearings of money upon the lives and character of mankind, that an insight which should search out the life of a man in his pecuniary relations would penetrate into almost every cranny of his nature. For if we take account of all the virtues with which money is mixed up, honesty, justice, charity, frugality, forethought, self-sacrifice, and of their correlative vices, it is a knowledge that goes near to cover the length and breadth of humanity.”
It is certainly true that the amazingly extensive nature of the subject might lead one away into perfectly relevant discussions of almost every field of human activity; and nothing renders argument so unsatisfactory and inconclusive as to have unlimited scope. But in these pages the issue must be narrowed down and the question confined so far as possible to a very brief examination of one particular aspect of the subject, which will be created by formulating a deliberate contention and pursuing it by argument into some of the main channels of this perplexing problem. Even so it is likely that deep water will be reached, but, after all, a suggestion need not be driven to its utmost limits in all directions in order to establish its significance.
In choosing a direct point of attack against this generally accepted belief we shall treat the matter more or less from a practical point of view. Without getting involved in abstract philosophic propositions, without entering too far into the sphere of economics and politics, without preaching high morality, though the words and teachings of preachers must be quoted, an endeavour will be made, by working out a definite line of reasoning, to submit as a whole some of the simpler and perhaps more personal considerations which have no doubt already occurred to many who have given the subject thought and reflection. No maxims will be laid down as to how money should be made, spent, saved, lent, borrowed, invested, given or bequeathed, for the object is to strike at the root principle and shatter the ideal which underlies all those transactions, which colours men’s characters, influences their desires and aspirations, creates artificial class contrasts, and contributes largely to the general social confusion and chaos.
Briefly, then, our contention is: That no individual is capable of possessing, spending, or administering more than a certain definite amount of money, which can be roughly described as a full competence, without producing positively harmful effects on himself as well as on those affected by his actions. In other words, the “rich man” is an impossibility in any decently organised economic State, and the accumulation of capital in individual hands is detrimental to the public good. That is what is meant by the saying from which the title of this volume is taken.
It may appear at first sight to be an extreme view, because we have got so much accustomed to believing that a great deal of good can be done with money, and a great deal of happiness derived from it, that to be confronted with an uncompromising negation on such a time-honoured tradition may seem almost absurd. The argument is purposely intended to be completely comprehensive, and a case will be presented without exaggeration which will cover as much of the ground as possible, dealing with typical rather than exceptional instances by way of illustration.
We find in human nature three characteristic impulses which serve as the mainspring and motive power in the gaining and spending of money: the passion for acquisition, the instinct for absolute property, and the desire to excel. No one would suggest that the passion for acquisition can be destroyed: it is neither possible nor desirable, but it can be prevented from running wild, and it can be controlled, though it does not seem to have occurred to many people that such control is expedient. The instinct for absolute property is very much overestimated, and this arises from the fact that we are accustomed to a system which hardly allows any satisfactory intermediate stage between property and positive need. The craving for complete possession on any considerable scale only enters into the minds of those who covet their neighbours’ possessions. What a man wants and has every right to expect is security in the enjoyment of his necessaries and comforts, but this is precisely what in the vast majority of cases he does not get; and his want remaining unsatisfied is converted into a craving for absolute property. The desire to excel, which can undoubtedly be one of the finest human qualities, is in itself vitiated by the measure of money, which sets up an utterly false standard of excellence and converts pure ambition into a desire for material pre-eminence.