Not yet, then, have we found the human standard by which the gambler is to be denounced.
Gamblers are accused of avarice, and an inordinate desire for wealth. As a rule, the gamester is not penurious. A miserly or covetous grasp of money is inconsistent with his vocation. Concede the accusation, and is he alone? Is he more greedy of gain than other men? History refutes the charge. Money is the god of the world. Get enormous wealth is the cry, no matter how; no matter how many impoverished widows and squalid orphans are crying out to heaven, day and night, against you; and such slavish adulation as the world knows not beside are yours. The passion for wealth increases gradually, as its end is achieved, the world over. Its effects are manifest wherever men strive for gold.
“Gold! gold! gold! gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, rolled;
Heavy to get, and light to hold;
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold;
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the church-yard mould,
Price of many a crime untold;
Gold! gold! gold! gold!”—Thomas Hood.
The morale of gambling is not to be determined by political economy, which is not a part of moral philosophy. It is not founded on the imperations of duty, but upon the adequate footing of desirableness of self-interest. In the language of Prof. Perry: “One word circumscribes the field of morals, ought. One word defines the field of economy, expediency.” So far as it is a science, political economy is cold and selfish; “budded on monopoly values.” Judged by such a standard, gambling would be right, if expedient.
Yes, but is not gambling a destructive luxury? Is it not a wasteful expenditure of money? I answer, what is luxury, and is it always an evil? Roscher well says: “The idea conveyed by the word is an essentially relative one.” Every individual calls all expenditure with which he chooses to dispense, a luxury. The same is true of every age and nation. “’Tis a word without any specific idea,” wrote Voltaire, “much such another expression as when we say Eastern and Western hemispheres: in fact, there is no such thing as East and West; there is no fixed point where the earth rises and sets; or, if you will, every point on it is, at the same time, East and West. It is the same with regard to luxury; for either there is no such thing, or else it is in all places alike.... Do we understand by luxury the expense of an opulent person? Must he, then, live like the poor, he whose profusion, alone, is sufficient to maintain the poor? Expensiveness should be the thermometer of a private person’s fortune, as general luxury is the infallible mark of a powerful and flourishing empire.... Money is made for circulation. He who hoards it is a bad citizen, and even a bad economist. It is by dissipating it we render ourselves useful to our country and ourselves.” David Hume also thought the word of uncertain signification. He said: “The bound between virtue and vice cannot here be exactly fixed, more than in other moral subjects. To imagine that the gratification of any sense, or the indulging of any delicacy, is of itself a vice, can never enter into a head that is not disordered by the frenzies of enthusiasm. These indulgences are only vices, when they are pursued at the expense of some virtue, as liberality of charity; in like manner as they are follies, when a man ruins his fortune and reduces himself to want and beggary.” Again, William Roscher, the political economist, was of opinion that “prodigality is less odious than avarice; less irreconcilable with certain virtues;” and that “prodigality, directly or indirectly, increases the demand for commodities.” We know the Epicureans and Stoics were reproached with being bad citizens, because their moderation was a hindrance to trade. Gambling is no more a luxury than many other practices of mankind. Some persons may prefer it as a pastime to any other form of luxury. Who is to decide a question of taste and expense but the individual concerned? One man indulges lavishly in pictures, books, and clothes; another is prodigal in the matter of tobacco and liquors; a third delights in the excitement of chance. All these inclinations are luxurious. Which is preferable to each, is not for society to determine in one case, more than in the others. In a word, the phases of luxury are so variable and extensive that it is equally unjust and impracticable for the state to discriminate unfavorably.
The gambler is said to be idle and non-productive: that a quid pro quo is not given for what he receives. What is meant here by idleness and non-production? Does it signify that labor is the proper basis of exchangeable value: the only just source of what is called wealth? If so, the condemnation includes all who obtain wealth without working for it. Suppose it be admitted that service is the one equitable title to property. What, then, of assumed rights, in the form of profits, dividends, rent and interest? If true wealth is the outcome of physical labor, are not banker, broker, middleman, landlord, capitalist, gentleman of leisure and gambler on the same footing.
Bishop Jewel once said: “If I lend £100, and for it covenant to receive £105, or any other sum greater than was the sum I did lend, this is that we call usury: such a kind of bargaining as no good man, or godly man, ever used.” Many contend that interest contributes nothing to the support of society, but is a tax on labor. Those who receive it are said to be extortioners who live on the gains of other people. Christ, Buddha, Zoroaster, and Mahomet all put usury in the category of forbidden sins.
It is discountenanced by Ezekiel, Moses, David, Aristotle, Cato, St. Basil, Masse, Bacon, Buxton, Dr. Wilson and Fenton. Ricardo, the great economist, was of the opinion that rent is not a creation of wealth, and adds nothing to the necessaries, conveniences and enjoyments of society. Adam Smith, the father of political economy, considered rent as a monopoly price paid for the use of land. Were this true, the owner of a house, when it had paid for itself, could rightfully charge for its use, the cost of his labor in transferring it to you, and the amount of wear and tear.
It is said of the gambler that he is not a man of equivalents. But, if wealth is to be a question of exact equality in values and labor, then must business generally be condemned. The great legists, Pomponius and Paulus, unblushingly said, that “In buying and selling, a man has a natural right to purchase for a small price what is really more valuable, and to sell at a high price what is less valuable, and for each to overreach the other.” Harsh as this may seem, it but voiced the principles of trade in every age of the world. “Trade is war,” said the ancient proverb; “and as a nail between the stone joints, so does sin stick fast between buying and selling.” Business is advantage-taking erected into a system. Get as much more than you give as is possible. A thing is worth what it will bring. You may rightfully take from another what he is compelled to yield. Exchange is not a rendering of equivalent for equivalent; but an effort to get the largest possible amount of another’s property, or services, for the least possible return. In business, justice and mercy are daily displaced by extortion and mastership: “the producing classes are vassal to the speculating classes; the creators of wealth to its stealthy possessors.”
The Christian Fathers deprecated trade. “To seek to enrich one’s self is in itself unjust,” said Clement; “since it aims at appropriating an unfair share of what was intended for the common use of men.” “If covetousness is removed,” argued Tertullian, “there is no reason for gain, and, if there is no reason for gain, there is no need of trade.” Jerome taught that “as the trader did not himself add to the value of his wares, therefore, if he gained more for them than he paid, his gain must be another’s loss.” To Augustine, “business in itself is an evil, for it turns men from seeking true rest, which is God.” Aquinas decided “that to buy a thing for less, or sell a thing for more than its value is, in itself, unallowable and unjust.”