The deceptive process of the growth of riches--The relaxation
of effort--The love of ease--The power of convention--The
disadvantages of abundance--Surfeit--Difficulties in a rich man’s
life--Waste of talent and capacity--England as a nation deeply
infected with the belief in money.
There is no more misleading and deceptive process than the gradual
growth of riches. As a man’s income increases, fresh obligations arise
which have all the appearance of necessities, and in satisfying these a
still further crop springs up, demands his attention, and occupies more
of his time. Little by little his standard changes; stage by stage,
almost imperceptibly, what he once regarded as a pure luxury becomes to
him an imperative necessity, and all unconscious, he spends his energy
in the struggle to keep himself on a level with those among whom he
desires to be classed.
This is all very well with people whose means range above the limit,
but when we reach those who are on the border line, when we come to
the ranks of those whose existence is overshadowed by the constant and
wearing anxiety as to whether their small incomes will go far enough,
there is an element of profound tragedy in their efforts to keep up
appearances and to maintain an outward show of having money while
necessities, unseen but very pressing, are sacrificed--the service of
doctors and nurses in illness very likely denied, and all the small
accessories that go to make life in the home pleasanter cut off. We
are not aware of the large number of people thus situated, because
their brave attempts to delude us are often successful. Those we know
of have perhaps seen better days, being through no fault of their
own thrown into penury, and they may be making pathetic and painful
endeavours to keep up a show not, indeed, of affluence, but, anyhow,
of respectability. As a writer[15] recently said with great truth:
“There is little sympathy felt in the world of rhetoric for the silent
sufferings of the genteel poor, yet there is no class that deserves a
more charitable commiseration.” Their incomes may not be in themselves
excessively small, but the expense of conforming to the various little
conventions to which they have been accustomed and the strain of
trying to keep up to a level slightly above their natural standard
eat away too much of their meagre store. Their gentility has softened
them, or their middle-class respectability prevents them from openly
ranking themselves among the poor. They know, too, that a change in
circumstances may deprive them of their former “friends.”
The miseries of debt and bankruptcy may often be the outcome of an
extravagant or profligate disposition, and need not be directly
connected with an excess or deficiency of means. But this solicitude
to obey the rigid, conventional, and universally accepted measure for
classing the community according to their incomes, this horror of
dropping in the scale, is responsible for much suffering and secret
despair, especially among women who have not been trained to work and
find themselves turned adrift on the world with a bare pittance.
Higher in the scale, where there is an ample competence, the amount
spent on appearances is frequently unreasonably excessive. The craving
to associate with people who are richer and the fear of being thought
badly off, knowing that that is the equivalent of becoming socially a
pariah, produces a serious deficiency in the more important needs of
life, bitterness at the hardness of fate, stinting, useless saving, and
sometimes eventual impoverishment and ruin.
But without having actually to face catastrophe, these people, simply
by the injudicious and ill-managed administration of what they have
got, cannot live the full and decent lives their circumstances allow
them. This is true of a very large well-to-do class who cry out for
more money while they are spending too large a portion of what they
have in things which, for them, are unnecessary extravagances, but
which they cling to as indispensable.
They are probably slackening their exertions in directions where they
would be all the better for a little extra stimulant in the shape of
trouble and effort. The constant easy satisfaction of their small
requirements has an enervating and weakening effect on their character,
and there is neither charm nor adventure in their lives, for there
is a point when satisfaction almost suffocates. Human nature is so
constituted that energy increases in proportion as it is used. The more
a man has to do, the more he wants to do, the more he can do. All kinds
of insignificant little daily efforts keep the machine perpetually in
motion and in order, ready and alert for more work, and the spirit
of disinclination is shut out. Relax those efforts, augment sensuous
comforts, and the machine will require starting and restarting,
with a continual extra spurt and additional exertion. The spirit of
disinclination insinuates itself, and indolence and apathy creep in.
It has been shown in the animal world that the spoilt and carefully
combed and washed pet is far less intelligent than the animal who has
to look after himself, scratch his own fleas, and lick the dirt off his
paws. We are under the impression that if we can get rid of the various
irritations of daily life, which are our fleas, the time spent in
scratching will be devoted to work of a higher order more in conformity
with our powers. But, given the time, somehow we do not manage to do
the extra work. The ambition of every man who acquires more money is
not to increase the field of personal activity, but, on the contrary,
to restrict it. The natural tendency is towards ease rather than
action. But as soon as men find out that ease begets indifference and
indolence amounting to atrophy, and leading at last to a cessation of
the ordinary powers of enjoyment, and that action is a spur to the
faculties, making them more alive, more sensitive, and more susceptible
to enthusiasm and appreciation, they will be on their guard against the
snares and wiles that beset the path of everyone who makes a special
business of smoothing away all the roughness in his domestic and social
surroundings.
Spending money to save oneself trouble often produces trouble and worry
of a different and very likely more vexatious kind, and at the same
time reduces by that much the good effects on the character produced by
a certain amount of bracing discipline and general tightening of the
reins of conduct. Precisely in the same way as reducing hygienic or
physical exercise diminishes muscular efficiency. The recurring sense
of accomplishment, however trivial and apparently insignificant that
accomplishment may be, is invigorating to the nature and of enduring
value. As Carlyle says in one of his letters to his future wife: “Let
us not despond in the life of honourable toil which lies before us. Do
you not think that when you on one side of our household shall have
faithfully gone through your housewife’s duties, and I on the other
shall have written my allotted pages, we shall meet over our frugal
meal with far happier and prouder hearts than thousands that are not
blessed with any duty and whose agony is the bitterest of all, ‘the
agony of a too easy bed’?”
It is too much to ask that everyone should at once recognise what
sort of expenditure will really be repaying and fill their lives
with genuine happiness and what is only empty, disappointing, and
superfluous. But they are wrong when they suppose, as they so often
do, that they are suffering from want of money; and they are wrong
in believing that more money will cure their discontent. The problem
for them is more than half solved once they come to realise that they
are showing themselves to be incapable of the responsibility they
already possess, and that more money would only mean an increase of
responsibilities without any fresh acquisition of knowledge as to how
to discharge them. All around them they observe an implicit obedience
in small matters as well as great to what we may call the law of gain.
They join in obeying this law, which is nothing more than an artificial
convention of an ill-organised society.
The word convention has frequently been used, for it best describes the
fixed authority for conduct and ethics which has been set up by the
tacit consensus of public opinion, and which people accept and obey
without inquiry. This force--for it amounts to a force--drives the
great body of uneducated, under-educated, and ill-educated people, who
never stop to inquire or investigate. If a stick is put across a gap
in a hedge and a flock of sheep is driven through, the first few sheep
will jump the stick, and then, even after the stick has been removed,
the rest of the flock will all jump when they come to the gap, and
not one will stop to see if there is any reason or necessity for the
jump. So it is with human beings, who find it easier to do as others
do rather than take the trouble to exercise any separate powers of
discrimination which might convince them of the necessity of striking
out a different line of their own. One line of conduct may suit a large
number of individuals, but it is inconceivable that it should suit all,
and there is a great revivification of the faculties in a man when he
first realises that what may be right for others need not be right for
him.
A lady once remarked, with a sigh, while arranging her drawing-room,
“One must have a silver table,” meaning that a small table on which
could be displayed various gimcracks of silver was a necessity of
fashion in the disposition of drawing-room furniture. If she had
said, “I won’t have a silver table,” or, “I’m going to have twenty
silver tables,” she would have been an exceptional and original being
exercising an independent judgment at the risk of being thought
eccentric. But her only desire, and the only desire of the majority of
her fellows, is to conform.
Another cause of mischief is that most people have their eyes turned
towards those who are better off than they are themselves, and they
continually and instinctively make mental comparisons which serve
only to increase their longing. Seldom do they turn their eyes to
the millions who are less fortunate in the way of wealth and make
comparisons in that direction, else they might come to the unpleasant
conclusion that they have themselves already more than enough, and
perhaps too much. To live simply they foolishly suspect means something
disagreeable, unattractive, tedious, and arduous; whereas if they
only gave it a trial, they might find that the very simplification of
their manner of living would set free their energies and attract them
to new and absorbing interests, and a kind of happiness might become
theirs which far surpasses in intensity the greatest pleasures wealth
ever bought, and which, instead of being transitory and ephemeral, is
lasting.
“The superior worth of simplicity of life,” says J. S. Mill, “the
enervating and demoralising effect of the trammels and hypocrisies of
artificial society, are ideas which have never been entirely absent
from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote; and they will in time
produce their effect, though at present needing to be asserted as much
as ever, and to be asserted by deeds, for words on this subject have
nearly exhausted their power.”
Asceticism, pedantry, intentional unconventionality, and the affected
“simple life” have all served to damage the force of the arguments in
favour of plain living; and it is often supposed that it is jealousy
of the rich that causes the occasional outbursts against luxury. But
anyone who can watch for a moment and analyse social phenomena will
very soon come to the conclusion that there is nothing in the lives
of the rich of which anyone need be envious. Millionaires themselves
are the first to admit that their money brings them no happiness. The
confession has been made by one of them that the very fact of being
able without the least difficulty to satisfy his smallest or his
largest fancies was in itself the very antithesis of pleasure. He had
learnt that the continuous craving to satisfy human wants, far from
being a misfortune, constituted an intrinsic element in the production
of happiness. The hope perhaps long deferred, that some particular want
might eventually be satisfied was a treasure he had for ever lost the
power to appreciate. It is delay, and not immediate satisfaction, that
enhances the value of acquisition. “Millionaires who laugh are rare,”
says Andrew Carnegie.
Superabundance, surfeit, the cloying sweetness of excess, the
consequent lack of restraint and reserve must encourage the development
of moral sickness, nausea, and intellectual inertia. In all
professions, arts, trades, and crafts the fixing of a limit within
which to operate is the secret of the attainment of a high quality
of work because it is the recognition of human limitations. The same
principle holds good for every human being in the administration of his
worldly possessions and the management of his own life. Economy should
be the key-note rather than profusion, strength lies in reserve rather
than in excess.
We are only saying to a man who is sitting before a table laden with a
vast quantity of different dishes heaped with all kinds of appetising
foods: “Being an ordinary mortal your digestion will not stand more
than a limited quantity of that food. If you continually eat more than
what is good for you, you will be ill. A certain amount of food will
nourish you, a larger amount will simply make you sick. We do not say
your food is too good, nastier food would be better for you, nor do we
say that you must never have a feast: but we assure you that if you
habitually gorge the surfeit will injure your digestive powers, will
destroy your own enjoyment of the meal, and at the same time, by this
thoughtless waste, you are depriving many who have an insufficient
quantity of what is rightfully theirs. In any case, you can never
manage to eat all these dishes by yourself. What good are they to you?
To propose that you should be relieved of some of your superfluity is
the suggestion of a friend and not of an enemy. Just reflect as you
see this huge meal spread before you that the great majority of your
fellow-men have not more than one meagre and inadequate dish.” He would
probably reply: “I am the best judge of what is good for me. The food
is mine. If I do not eat it I am not going to allow anyone to deprive
me of it, but I can always give part of it away if and when I feel
inclined”--and he will continue with a dull gaze of satiated weariness
to regard the piles of food before him.
This is a fair metaphor, because we have all been forced to learn
the precise nature of our limitations with regard to the consumption
of food. Is it unreasonable to hope that in time we may become as
conscious of our limitations in the consumption of other materials no
less important?
If the rich protest that they have a perfect right to amass what
fortune they like, and that it is tyranny and an infringement of their
liberty to deny them this right, they can be told plainly that their
liberty will only be respected if they in their turn will respect
the liberty of others, which cannot be effectually secured except by
restraining license. As it is, they are manifestly depriving others
of their liberty and elementary rights by the outrageous license they
now allow themselves. No one cries out louder than a rich man if by any
chance he loses part of his fortune. The reduction of his income from
fifty to thirty, or from twenty to ten thousand a year is a catastrophe
for which he unceasingly asks the sympathy and commiseration of his
friends. The dismissal of the second footman is a hardship which
requires courage to face, the sale of a corner of the estate is the
sign of ruin! He stands in striking contrast to those who, having to
face genuine poverty, often show fortitude and pluck in the face of
bitter misfortunes.
But as an excuse for the rich man it ought frankly to be acknowledged
that his life is made extremely complex and difficult. If this much
alone were apparent to him he might pause in his eager chase. A man
with work, with a profession or trade, a woman with a profession or
with house and parental duties, not only have their time occupied, but
have their thoughts filled and have fewer alternatives of conduct,
while at the same time they are not freed from the conflicting
obligations which make every life a serious problem. But the rich man
has before him unlimited alternatives without any constraint. He
has to invent and conceive for himself his sphere of usefulness and
select the particular form of occupation he thinks will suit him. He
suffers from misgivings in embarking on one form of activity, that he
might have done better to choose another. If he is not careful, idle
business, the inevitable outcome of his estates, his establishments,
his social duties, and other appurtenances of his elaborate entourage
will take up the greater part of his time and absorb all his thoughts.
However conscientiously he may desire to encourage works of utility
and throw himself into profitable pursuits, he must find himself
embarrassed not only with his load of wealth, but with the limitless
horizon before him, the entire absence of any disciplinary compulsion,
and the withdrawal of the restraints which shield the course of a
simpler life. Not only is the volume of water larger, but there is no
river bed. The shifting action of the stream, therefore, is far more
likely to be devastating than fertilising.
Waste and loss will everywhere be found in money’s trail. Talents
which under free, unhampered conditions might have grown and blossomed
have been withered under this golden blight. Many men and women might
have done valuable work and even attained great achievements had
they been compelled to work for a living, to toil, to labour, and to
strive instead of being choked with the glut of riches. With a very
few exceptions, men in the creative arts and in science have not been
men who by any standard could be described as rich. The greatest
treasures the world possesses in painting, music, literature, poetry,
and architecture are gifts from men who were never burdened with
great possessions. No genius, no creative spirit, no hungry inquirer,
no philosopher can exist in the hot-house atmosphere and cramping
conditions which surround riches.
On the other hand, extreme poverty has very much the same effect,
killing the too sensitive and fragile spirit in its exertions to be
free, wasting what might be a useful and perhaps remarkable life,
and forcing men of high powers to stoop to the prostitution of their
talents in order to gain enough for their very subsistence. But in
the latter case, anyhow, the fight is a great and vigorous combat
for existence which a man must take up or perish, and which, if
he succeeds, equips him with strengthened faculties and a richer
experience for the further stages on his life’s journey. Poverty is
merciless and cruel, but it cannot be denied that it is a far better
teacher than riches. The contest with money has no stimulating
effects, it weakens and paralyses a man’s moral and intellectual fibre,
stunts and smothers his finer ambitions, and if he has the unusual
strength of character to free himself, it can only be done by casting
from him deliberately and finally his self-imposed burden.
Art, literature, and music are all suffering severely from the
financial taint known as commercialism, which tends to popularise
second-rate work, degrade the public taste, and steepen the already
stiff path chosen by those who are aiming at a high standard of
workmanship rather than popular recognition. “Will it pay?” is a
colloquialism as general in use as remarks about the weather.
When compared with other nations, it would seem that we in England
are more deeply infected with this belief in money than they are
elsewhere. Our very prosperity, generally described in figures of
material expansion, may account for this. The more money there is in
circulation, the more chance there is for larger quantities of it to
get lodged in a single pocket, the keener becomes the competition to
acquire it, the stronger is the power, the influence, and the example
of rich men.
America cannot be very far behind, where comment is now being made
on cases of insanity and the suicidal mania among the children and
descendants of very rich people, brought about by the mental and
nervous strain and exhaustion to which multi-millionaires are subjected
in their mad race for wealth. It produces in the children what they
call over there “the money twist” in the brain. Nevertheless, in
his survey of English life the American writer already quoted says,
“The struggle to get it (money) is unparalleled anywhere else in the
world.”[16] And this was also the verdict of one who wrote a few years
ago with an intimate knowledge of Continental life:
“There is no nation in the world that has so acute a sense of the
value, almost the necessity of wealth for human intercourse as the
English nation.... In England they silently accept the maxim, ‘a
large income is a necessary of life,’ and they class each other
according to the scale of their establishments, looking up with
unfeigned reverence to those who have many servants, many horses,
and gigantic houses, where great hospitality is dispensed.”[17]
In the economic structure, just as in an architectural structure, what
should be aimed at is a proper relation between weights and supports.
One section of our social building is too heavily weighted and there
is an unnecessary waste of material in supplying the adequate supports
and buttresses to meet the stress, which is all on the one side. It is
this want of balance and disproportionate pressure which tends very
materially to imperil the whole edifice.
Does it amount to a national danger? and if so, how can it be warded
off? are questions that may well be asked. But this would carry us too
far and involve a discussion as to the extent to which legislation or
taxation or an improved system of education might shield us from any
risks. It lies outside the scope of our present argument, which must
be confined to demonstrating the existence and universal nature of the
passion, its unjustifiable claims and evil consequences.
How to put a stop to the waste caused by an unproductive surplus
getting piled up in the hands of the rich is nevertheless admitted by
modern economists to be a matter that urgently needs solution. “The
principal problem of modern industrial civilisation,” says Mr. J. A.
Hobson, “consists in devising measures to secure that the whole of
the industrial surplus shall be economically applied to the purposes
of industrial and social progress instead of passing in the shape of
unearned increment to the owners of the factors of production whose
activities are depressed, not stimulated by such payments.”[18]