by Tom Kando
Warning: this piece is meant to be light-hearted.
The world remains firmly stuck in the age of mass consumption and materialism.
America, Europe, and the developing world each contribute to humanity’s continuing plunder of the planet.
To be sure, ever since the 1960s, many people in the Western world have moved in a counter-cultural direction, becoming more “green.” A growing number of Americans are becoming aware that unfettered consumption is a dead end and that our voracious consumption habits need to be toned down. As to Europe, many people there have probably reached a somewhat more advanced stage of “green consciousness.”
However, all such progress is more than negated by an opposite worldwide trend, namely the all-out drive into consumerism by the emerging nations, including giants such as China and India. And of course, much of the growing green consciousness is more talk than action. America remains in the forefront of materialism.
And most telling is the continued worldwide consensus among all governments, all economists, all policy shapers, that economic growth will solve all our problems - poverty, hunger, inequality, war, crime, refugees...
The obvious and overarching problem with unhinged consumerism is practical: It will kill the planet, it will kill us all, the way it did the Easter Islanders.
But today, I want to talk about a different aspect of materialism : The fact that it is a bad VALUE, over and beyond its devastating physical consequences.
Remember Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Our basic needs are (1) physiological, then comes (2) the need for safety, then (3)love and belonging, then (4) (self) esteem and finally (5) self-actualization. (See Maslow).
Materialism means an inordinate focus on the pursuit of material goals (Maslow’s level #1), and the neglect of the higher values.
Beyond a certain level, the pursuit of material wants becomes bad. It becomes GREED, and it also includes lust, envy and gluttony. 4 of the 7 deadly sins.
The love of money for money’s sake is a central part of this, and a central part of our culture.
Once you have amassed several million - let alone several billion - what is the point of chasing after more? What need do people such as Jeff Bezos (worth $160 billion) and Donald Trump (who knows how many billion) have for more wealth? What can they do with more wealth that they cannot do with their current wealth? If you gave me a billion, I honestly wouldn’t know what to do with it, beyond giving most of it to some worthwhile causes.
* * * * * *
President Calvin Coolidge said that “the business of America is business.” Right. Our entire culture centers around making money.
This is especially so in our late capitalist economy, where most businesses no longer produce merchandise, but instead sell and transfer merchandise produced by workers (most of them in places like Vietnam). Such “business” is not productive; it is parasitic. Profit is the measure of success. This system is epitomized by Wall Street, which consists of paper (or e-file) shuffling.
Many philosophers have bemoaned materialism. For example, the ancient Greek Cynics admired Socrates for his indifference to his material surroundings. Diogenes (412-323 B.C.) was one of them, at least according to the many anecdotes about him. It is said that Alexander the Great once came by the old philosopher, who lived in a tub on a street in Corinth, and asked him if there was any favor he could do for him. Diogenes replied “Yes, get out of my sunlight.”
At the core of materialism and greed is the love of money, and its pursuit regardless of how much of it one already possesses. In other words, the love of money for its own sake.
One could envisage a conversation between a reincarnation of Diogenes and a capitalist:
Diogenes: “Money leaves me indifferent.”
Capitalist: “How can you say that? Money can buy you anything. Without money, you have nothing. Without money people starve and go without shelter.”
Diogenes: “True, but money is a means, not an end. It should not be loved for its own sake. Shit is also a necessity. But we don’t have to love it.”
Capitalist: “Are you equating money with shit?”
Diogenes: ““The metaphor isn’t new. It has occurred to many people. Take your famous Sigmund Freud for instance. He identified personality types such as the anally expulsive or “diarrhetic” type, and its opposite, the anally retentive or constipated type. Some of your experts on the human soul (you call them “psychologists”) say that the former tends to be a spendthrift, whereas the latter tends to be a miser.
Capitalist: “So what does this have to do with the love of money?”
Diogenes: “Well, both of these types love money too much, and both are wrong. Squandering and hoarding are equally wrong. As my friend Aristotle said: Always follow the Golden Mean. Avoid extremes. And as my teacher Zeno said, the paradox is that those who hoard are also those who squander.
© Tom Kando 2018;All Rights Reserved
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9 comments:
Don't forget Poe's Law, any satire will be taken as serious on the internet.
Delightful and engaging piece. Perfect to kick off the holiday season.
By the way, V. Thorstein ( I believe that's the correct name) changed my thinking about too much consumption. I find life to be more enjoyable by living with simple necessities and not cluttering up space.
Thanks for this enjoyable lighthearted commentary Tom.
Gail
Hi Gail,
That's great. You are so right. Thorstein Veblen’s “Theory of the Leisure Class” is precisely about this subject. He coined the expression “conspicuous consumption.” I quote him in my leisure book. A great early American sociologist who is more relevant today than ever before.
Thanks for reminding us.
And by the way, let’s amend Plato: he wanted his model city to be ruled by philosopher-kings. How about making that sociologist-kings?
Bedankt Tom voor je schrijven! Eyeopener van Diogenes. Het is zo waar om ons niet te laten leiden door het geld, want uiteindelijk 'tijd' één van de kostbaarste en tegelijkertijd ongrijpbaarste elementen, is niet met geld te koop. Ook niet voor de rijkste mensen op aarde.
Alle goeds,
Marina writes:
Thanks, Tom, for your writing. Eyeopener about Diogenes. It is so true, that we shouldn't be led by money, because "time' is one of the dearest and also most untouchable elements, and it can't be bought with money. Not even for the richest people on earth.
Hear hear!
Seems to me that most of the entrepreneurial billionaires of the nineteenth century like A. Carnegie, A. Mellon, J. P. Morgan, H. Ford, J.D. Rockefeller, etc had an incredible drive to achieve, or succeed, or dominate rather than driven by greed, and how do you explain their philanthropic efforts if they were only greedy?
I am always glad to get feedback, especially critical feedback, because this shows that I am not just preaching to the choir.
Your point is a familiar one, and in the absence of better ways to reach economic justice, philanthropy is better than nothing.
But it is not clear how much philanthropy there was and is, to counteract greed and exploitation. These men were not called “robber barons” for nothing.
As far as that goes, by the way, today’s multi-billionaires (Bill Gates et. al.) also engage in philanthropy. Who knows which generation of super-rich has been more generous.
And regarding the identification of personality traits to explain success (or failure): It is our natural tendency to do this. It is a universal psychological habit. But as a sociologist, I find much greater validity in attributing success (or failure) to a host of factors beyond the individual’s control, including social class, family background, race, gender, time, place, and above all luck.
There is no better example than our current president: A chimpanzee could have amassed a
greater fortune than the current occupant of the White House, had it been given its first several hundred million dollars as start-up money.
The psychological traits that allegedly explain a person’s success (or failure) are almost always found ex post facto, assigned to the “great man” (or to the mass murdered) retroactively, as are so many of our “explanations” of human behavior and social phenomena.
But hey, thanks for your comment.
Chimpanzee? You continue to underestimate that occupant as you will again in 2020.
Actually, I pride myself for having correctly predicted Trump's victory in 2016. I'm the last person in the world who counts his chickens. While I would find it a catastrophe, I am aware that a two-term Trump presidency is quite possible... Shit happens.
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