The rich man as a business man--The conduct of a successful
business--Money-making the incentive--Money no measure of
merit or worth in men--Or in works of art--Financiers--The
power of money--Imperialism--Political power--Experiments of
millionaires--Gifts--Money administered by corporations or the
State.
So far the type chosen has been that of an aristocratic landed
proprietor. But aristocrats and landowners are not all rich men, nor
are all rich men aristocrats or landed proprietors. A large proportion
are business men who have made or are making their fortunes through
some commercial undertaking or from successful speculations. Once
the business man has succeeded he is pretty sure to buy an estate,
but there are many rich men who do not claim to be engaged in the
“industry” of land proprietorship. In the argument we have to meet here
it is claimed for money that it is the mainspring of initiative and
enterprise in commerce, and is the just reward of skilful management
and business ability.
But before proceeding let us remember once more the main premises
of our contention. It may be as undesirable as it is impracticable
to eliminate the undoubted incentive which the desire for more money
creates. But it can be curbed before it reaches an exaggerated extreme,
and it can be rationalised once people understand that great riches are
no real reward, only mean excessive burden, do not minister to human
happiness, and impose a responsibility which no living being is capable
of discharging.
In the commercial world it is evident enough that the money-making
ideal is far stronger and predominates over the ideal of securing
perfection in production, which implies a proud ambition to produce the
best goods under the best possible conditions. In the conflict between
these two ideals is precisely where the danger lies. Tricks such as
extensive and sensational advertisement and unscrupulous pushing are,
as we all know, more favoured than the slower, more laborious, and less
certain expedients of continually improving the methods of production
and conditions of labour. Many a fortune has been made in the vast
expansion of a concern far beyond its intrinsic merits simply by means
of advertisement. The incentive in such a case is solely money-making.
The talents required are those of an inferior order, such as astute
business capacity and cunning. So far, therefore, as money-making is
the ideal, it is neither to the advantage of the business nor to the
advantage of the community, who are the consumers of whatever commodity
the business turns out, any more than it is to the ultimate advantage,
as already shown, of the man who enriches himself. The ambition of
heads of firms to enrich themselves personally constitutes, in fact,
the chief deterrent to permanently successful commercial enterprise.
A further step is made in the wrong direction when the founder of
a thriving business, having made his fortune and established the
reputation of his firm, has his son or successor educated at a public
school and university, where he may learn the manners and customs of
the leisured classes. The result is that when the successor, who has
not received a special technical business training and is therefore
quite unfitted to keep abreast of the acute competition which he finds
in the commercial world around him, takes over the business, it rapidly
deteriorates, in spite of the abortive efforts of the new head, who
probably thinks that by mere expenditure of money the situation can
be saved. In instances such as these no defence can be made for the
accumulation of capital in the hands of individuals. But let us take a
better type.
A man by his energy and industry creates a successful business. As
his fortune grows he makes no difference in his private life beyond
that which his increasing obligations absolutely necessitate. He
judiciously sinks the greater part of his profits in his business in
order to improve it continually in all its branches. He makes his son
or successor go through the mill, educating him himself technically
in every process connected with the work so that in his turn he will
be thoroughly fitted to conduct the concern in the same progressive
spirit. This case, where a man has resisted the temptation of taking
full personal advantage of his riches to, what is called, “lift”
himself into another sphere of society and consort with a different
and, of course, we must say “higher” class, is not common. He has, so
to speak, identified himself with his work, absorbed himself in its
continuous efficiency, and, in fact, very properly treats his wealth as
a trust created by those who are working for him and also by those who
are consuming his produce, and he therefore returns it to them in the
shape of more favourable conditions for his workers and improvements
in machinery and methods of production, which permit a better and
cheaper article to be delivered to the consumer. The danger in this is
not connected with the conduct of the man himself, but it lies in the
fact that this admirable manner of conducting the business and dealing
with the profits depends solely on the one individual will. There is no
security or guarantee that his successor will see fit to behave in the
same way. The money, being in individual hands, will sooner or later
fall into the less worthy grasp of a man whose interest in the business
is insignificant compared with his desire to cut a figure of importance
by means of his riches. Our ideal manufacturer is not treating the
money or spending it as if it were his own. But nevertheless it is his
own to dispose of, and he will leave his large profits to a successor
on whose whim and fancy the responsibility of their administration
again rests.
There is no reason why he should not raise himself into another plane
and, after resigning the management of his business to other hands,
extend his activities in another direction and achieve further success.
For the few, however, who by force of character and exceptional ability
are able to rise to the level of their new circumstances, there are
many more who, simply taking advantage of their riches, abandon one
form of activity, which was useful and in which they excelled, for
the sake of associating themselves with a leisured, ease-loving, arid
society to which they do not naturally belong and which they had been
wiser to avoid. There are many men who can stand up against adversity,
but it requires a character of great depth and force to keep its
balance against success.
Acknowledged worldly success for which full credit is given publicly
is not necessarily achieved by the exercise of superior intellectual
or business ability, but can be obtained, just as titles and honours,
by the judicious expenditure of money. It naturally appeals strongly
to people who like appreciation and applause, and after all, who does
not? But the worth of a man can no more be estimated by his money value
than the worth of an article. The doctor who charges a high fee is
not _ipso facto_ a good doctor, but many of them are astute enough to
see that by raising their fee they can enhance their reputation, so
easily gullible do they know their rich patients to be. The same with
lawyers, who trade on the folly of those who can afford the luxury of
litigation. This expensive system reacts upon the administration of
justice, because it means that in the majority of cases it is only
the rich who can secure the best legal skill for their defence in the
courts. Thus even our boasted equality before the law is not immune
from this universal disease. In the scientific and creative world
great achievements receive next to no recompense and often only very
tardy recognition. Great services and great merit have no price: a gift
of money is no reward for the man who has experienced the inestimable
satisfaction of real achievement unless it is to prevent his falling
into penury.
Public opinion is quite unable to judge true merit, so high fees, huge
salaries, grants, and fabulous prices are reserved for those beings
and those things to which fashion and popular clamour point at the
moment. An Italian old master which fifty years ago could be bought for
fifty pounds or so will now fetch as many hundreds or even thousands.
A mezzotint which a few years back cost a trifling sum can now be sold
for fifty times the amount. So it is with all _objets d’art_, plate,
or furniture. The price does not represent value nor demand, but the
passing fancy of rich collectors who set the fashion of the day which
they and the dealers create among themselves without reference to
artistic merit or good taste, or even popular appreciation. By the
fabulous prices which nowadays are asked and given some estimate can
be made of the resources of those who have got these vast sums to
play with. So that even in the purchase of works of art, which need
not be classed as luxuries, for they can be in the highest sense
remunerative, an ever-increasing amount of money is absolutely wasted
in speculation and gambling.
To maintain the supremacy of money as a standard, as a test, as a
reward, and as an incentive, we have a whole body of professions
exclusively devoted to the making of it for themselves and for us
without our having the exertion of working for it. And yet they
and their army of clerks have to slave in their offices, lending,
borrowing, broking, speculating, gambling, company-promoting,
constructing syndicates, creating trusts and combines, occupied with
all the complicated and involved tricks of a trade which of all trades
is the most tricky. They must not be too nice or too scrupulous. They
must suppress any inclination they might naturally have to be sensitive
or particular. They are occupied largely in trying secretly to get the
better of someone else or sometimes in manipulations of a dubious,
or perhaps we ought to say mysterious nature, and their profession,
which is avowedly and exclusively to make money at all costs, must of
necessity cast some blight on their lives and characters.
An increasingly large share of the wealth of the modern world falls
into the hands of stock-brokers, company-promoters, and other
financiers, who are the high priests of money. Such is their power
in controlling the money market, manipulating prices, and directing
gambling operations on the stock exchange that they gradually come to
occupy the place of government not only in the world of finance, but in
the industrial world and even to some extent in the world of politics.
The large body of ordinary investors and speculators are completely at
their mercy, for only a very few can pretend to master or follow the
intricacies of this highly elaborated system which the large financiers
have set up like a huge web to catch all contributions coming from
the investments and savings of the general public. But the general
business of private finance is the immediate concern of every man, and
it is certainly the subject about which most people think they know
something and many people know a good deal. Mystery pervades it. A man
will tell you his professional experiences, he will even confide to you
his domestic cares and his moral delinquencies, his religious views he
is ready to lay bare before you. But on his financial affairs he will
be silent, and no one would dream of committing the indiscretion of
questioning him on so delicate and sacred a topic. Little or nothing is
known of how a man comes by his money. The industry or ability he has
displayed in making his fortune is not what is admired, but his actual
riches. It never occurs to people to inquire if or how a man has earned
his money, all they want to know is if he has actually got it.
Setting aside self-indulgence, the chief pleasure of riches is said
to be the enjoyment of the power they give. This power, which we are
trying to prove is only a power for harm, is associated with a sense of
individual superiority. Whether in charity, philanthropy, patronage,
or investment producing further gain, the predominant experience for
the individual is personal triumph. It is not unjust to condemn the
appreciation of power such as this as a low form of pleasure not only
for its pure selfishness, but because triumph in this connection
implies control of other individuals and power to gain advantage at
their cost. It is a form of self-glorification and exultation which
simply means that to have wealth is to have the whip hand.
No one hopes for or expects complete repression of self, but in
any corporate action for a common object, where there is a certain
necessary self-repression, the satisfaction to the individual is
unquestionably higher and purer. At any rate, the idealisation of a
personal pre-eminence and ascendancy which is supported on the clay
feet of material possessions is idolatry of the most dangerous type.
There is, moreover, attached to the possession of wealth another
sort of power which is even more dangerous from the public and
national point of view, but which is valued and appreciated even by
those who recognise that sheer hedonism defeats its own object. It
is the pressure which capital can bring to bear on the machinery of
government. Private commercial interests can translate themselves into
political influence both in particular constituencies and nationally
through propaganda and the Press. They can foster the Imperialist
spirit, which may mean the acquisition of more territory and the
opening out of fresh markets for the investment of their capital.
Meanwhile these enthusiastic Imperialists can pose as patriots,
although the further filling of their pockets, and not the nation’s
honour, is their objective. “The economic root of Imperialism,” says
a modern economist,[13] “is the desire of strong organised industrial
and financial interests to secure and develop at the public expense and
by the public force private markets for their surplus goods and their
surplus capital. War, militarism, and a spirited foreign policy are the
necessary means to this end.”
Imperialism, which depends on rousing the pugnacious and combative
instincts latent in any people by exaggerating international
differences and jealousies, is the national expression, under the guise
of patriotism, of the desire for gain, territorial aggrandisement,
profit and enrichment. It represents everything, in fact, that
corresponds to the love of money-making in the individual. There is
money even to be got out of arming your enemies, and there is no
squeamishness shown about investing money in this way.
Although bribery can influence votes and a few constituencies can
still be bought, the necessity of being a man of means in order to be
admitted into active political life is happily a thing of the past.
On the other hand, the influence of the capitalist press, run as it
is now, chiefly as a financial speculation, has in later days grown
to be a grave national peril. The power here exercised is of a very
distinct and far-reaching description. The ambitions of capitalism and
the demands of shareholders are interpreted as the will of the people,
and the worst instincts of aggressive arrogance are traded upon to
produce at the proper moment the scare or outburst of jingoism; at the
same time, “popular” protests can be artificially engineered to stand
against any movement which is likely to interfere with the ambitions of
the wealthy.
Money, therefore, does mean power, but power of a pernicious
description, “that of brute force, the power of the bludgeon and the
bayonet and of the bribed press, tongue, and pen.”[14]
Having discussed worldliness, vanity, and self-indulgence as well as
commercial enterprise and speculation, we must get to close quarters
with an aspect of the problem which at first sight might seem to be
an exception to our general condemnation of riches. What is the real
effect of money spent by millionaires on philanthropic, scientific, or
social experiments, and even educational endowments? Are we justified
in hailing them as wholly and unquestionably beneficent?
That they should spend their money this way instead of on themselves
must be acknowledged at once as preferable and as a step in a better
direction. They gain immense applause from the world by their deeds,
although, of course, no sacrifice whatever is involved. It is greatly
to their credit that their intelligence should prompt them to attempt
to benefit their fellows by a national and scientific exploration of
new ground which may eventually lead to some permanent benefit to
the human race. But while granting unreservedly the purity of their
motives, we shall by a more exact examination of the nature, scope, and
consequences of their action come to the following conclusions which
amount to objections:
(1) The choice of the particular experiment and the decision as to
whether it shall be embarked on at all rests with one individual
will. The source of action therefore being an uncertain quantity
which cannot be depended upon, this method of initiating works for
the public benefit is incapable of being organised, controlled, or
even relied upon. Indeed, millionaires are apt to be like spoilt
children unless they can have the satisfaction of complete control
over their exploits.
(2) The experiment selected may not be a wise one or in conformity
with the ideals of real betterment, even though for a time it may
receive the formal sanction of popular approval.
(3) Even if the experiment is admittedly useful and beneficial, it
has a strong tendency to encourage us, who constitute the community
as a whole, to think that as there are rich men who are sufficiently
enterprising and public-spirited to undertake these schemes and works
of general utility, it is unnecessary to organise corporate effort,
to establish them ourselves. Moreover, there is limit of productivity
in private enterprise.
(4) There are social schemes carefully conceived and elaborately
worked out which fail because the very security of certain
financial help and support has the effect of weakening initiative,
choking enterprise, and preventing the growth of the just pride and
self-reliance which individuals or bodies of individuals can only
develop in an independent struggle with the chances and changes of
their natural environment. Those who are supposed to benefit by the
scheme are in fact, oppressed by the shadow of the heavy arm of the
financial subsidy which dominates the whole situation. This may be
unreasonable, but it is quite natural, and it shows that money poured
out by one hand clogs the machinery of commercial and industrial
life, falls, so to speak, into clots and cannot spread itself
effectively as a lubricant into the many narrow and unseen corners of
the domestic, municipal, or rural life and activities of the people.
(5) Lastly, or it should have been said, primarily, the paramount
objection is that any good that may come from the particular scheme
or experiment is completely outweighed by the wrong that has been
perpetrated and the injury that has been inflicted, in countless
ways and in numberless directions, by the withdrawal from healthy
circulation and the accumulation of the very riches a part of which
is now being returned to the community in this doubtful form.
It would be ungenerous to deny that great care and forethought have
been exercised by the millionaires who have determined to devote a
large part of their wealth to some great religious, social, scientific,
or artistic cause. Distinct benefits have accrued from their action.
But emphatically this does not mean that surplus wealth in individual
hands can be used profitably. It means that human ingenuity,
intelligence, and generous feeling can to some small extent mitigate in
one direction the constant and pressing evils which the accumulation of
riches has caused and is causing in a vastly more extensive way.
Another example about which some doubt might be expressed is that of
a man struggling with his family on an income well below the limit,
unable to develop his capacities and lead a decently useful life
because of the constant pinch of want. Will not a gift of money which
secures him a competence without affluence, frees his energies for
higher work, and liberates him from the sordid and painful trials of
poverty, will not such a gift be an unqualified advantage to him, and
will not, therefore, the giver of that money be an exception to the
axiom that superfluous wealth cannot be well spent?
The gift and its acceptance are not the only determining factors in
the problem. If such a case is quite fairly stated, it shows that
the donor was not giving part of his superfluous wealth, taking the
definition of superfluous which has already been given. He is giving
something which, as it turns out, he personally has the capacity to
give in a profitable and fruitful manner, and which perhaps involves
a certain amount of sacrifice on his part. This money therefore
constitutes part of his competence and the gift is justifiable. But
this can only be admitted to a very restricted extent. He must use the
utmost discretion not to give too much, otherwise he will overstep the
mark of prudence. He may be encouraged to make this gift too frequently
and less discriminatingly. In short, the number of such cases, where
the recipient is unmistakably benefited by an isolated gift of money,
are very exceptional. If we are presupposing that our donor has money
to play with and that his gift is made out of his superfluity, in this
case, as in that of the millionaire’s experiment, his balance is on the
wrong side, and more harm is being done by the retention of his surplus
than good is done by his small, spasmodic endeavours at charitable
help and subsidy, even though now and then they may be perfectly well
directed.
Capital entrusted to companies, corporations, municipalities, or in the
possession of the State, need not, from the bare fact of its being
held conjointly by a number of people, be expended in a wise way or
on remunerative works. But there is a very much better chance of its
being well spent in the long run, where there is practically unlimited
capacity in the joint efforts and united talents of a number of people,
where there is disinterested control, and where that control is itself
far from supreme, being subject to the direct supervision of electors
or of the general community. Remonstrance, appeal, or protest in this
case is always possible and effectual, but when an individual is the
only dispenser of the funds, he is the sole arbiter and judge, has
complete and despotic power, and is not answerable to any superior
authority.
Further it cannot be seriously controverted that money, circulating in
small sums in the hands of the mass of the people and devoted for the
most part to the purchase of the necessaries of life, is infinitely
more conducive to productive expenditure than money hoarded in large
quantities to be administered by a small class for their own advantage.