Post #37: Money Makes the World Go Round

12 June 2023

Even if the old cliché is right, the much more interesting question, to me, is the one that should come next: What kind of a world would you like it to be? What direction will you move it in with your money? Putting it like that might invite all kinds of grand and visionary answers, but that's not what I am looking for, but rather how you might shape and reshape your world by the everyday attitude you take towards money and all it represents. I've touched on this pesky issue from several angles already (see Posts #6, #22, #24), but I am still dissatisfied—not because I am so preoccupied with it (I hope), but because our common ideas around this topic look so strange to me, and so entrenched.

The money-lovers, when they sometimes hold on to the stuff as if to dear life, or pursue it as if nothing else mattered much, are at least partly right: it really is a formidable force for getting one’s way in the world, and anyone who has ever faced persistent unpaid (or what is much worse, unpayable) bills, to say nothing of shortages that put one's very life and limb in jeopardy, will know that it is only ever an insignificant matter for those who have enough, or more than enough. If you think that money has nothing to do with peace of mind, you have not experienced the anxiety that comes from receiving collection calls to which one has no answer, or just how depressing it is to be coming short all the time and to be unable to resolve the myriad dilemmas that serious deficits and debts create practically every moment of the day.

Those who are more inclined to demonize than to idolize money often treat it as if it had its own suspect nature that could be separated from how it is earned or what is done with it in any concrete case. Yet this despised thing—bad, bad money—cures the sick, feeds the hungry, and keeps physical dangers at bay in countless ways that can make the difference between life and death. Schools and museums and libraries run on it as surely as penitentiaries or armies, and without it you could not build a meditation center either, nor make your way there. Even walking requires resources, if only in the form of calories; if you hitch a ride, money is still at play, only someone else’s; and if you have dreams of sitting under the Buddha’s bodhi tree in Bodhgaya one day, you will probably need to catch a train or flight somewhere, which is not cheap to provide.

To say that such things should be made available for free is a delusion; someone always has to pick up the tab—and if you are presenting it for payment by someone else, then the burden is on you to specify who should do it on your behalf, and why. To ask, on the other hand, that you should make your own contribution in return for good things being made available to you that demand much effort by others, seems pretty reasonable to me, and what money adds is mostly the inestimable refinement of being allowed to make your contribution in any form that suits you best (or bothers you least) against the background of what goods and services other human beings value enough to pay for them. To deny this is not idealistic, it is anti-social, claiming in effect that you should be entitled to the fruits of other people’s labors without giving anything back.

There is a lot of derisive talk these days about “transactional” dealings, as if the fact that something was done for money were enough to make it wrong. If you think through the logic of voluntary transactions, however, you might notice that no money would ever change hands if both sides did not think they were benefiting. (I am talking here of free exchanges that are not premised on coercing or deceiving or cheating anyone). These frowned-upon interactions can (and should) be friendly, cooperative, and mutually advantageous, but apparently that is not enough for the refined sensitivities of our age. What more can you ask? A love-fest every time you need a new pair of flip-flops? Or perhaps a love-fest all the time, with everyone? That's not the Dhamma; that's just sentimental and silly.

The key to the partial blindness that so often sets in around these points is the ubiquitous readiness of human beings to judge and dismiss their neighbors' perceptions of value. To put it plainly, the sophisticates (which is how we all imagine ourselves along the parameters that count for us) always think they know better than the great unwashed what choices the wretches should be making (in their own best interest of course), and in that respect there really is nothing new under the sun, as it was already a favorite hobby of deep thinkers in ancient times. The characteristic feature of this line of reasoning is that the scolders of other people’s consumer choices never include themselves among the benighted customers, even if they behave in much the same manner. Only theirs is not abject consumerism—after all they drive a Saab or a Volvo, not a muscle truck; and their $10,000 trip to Bhutan or the Mount Everest base camp is on a completely different plane, obviously, from a vulgar cruise, let alone a plebeian package tour. It is only ever others who are fooled so very easily; the sophisticates are immune, without having to explain why they should be exempt from what they depict as a universal affliction—their own superior mental and cultural stature being of course the premise and purpose of the argument in the first place.

That said, I am not saying that the discussion ends (as it so often does) as soon as a few magic words are spoken: “It is your money...” Yes, it is yours, and I would not propose to take it away from you, via the taxman or any other way. It is not my business to tell you what to do, let alone to force you; but that’s not to say that I don't have my decided views on the wisdom (or unwisdom) of how you are carrying on. How you got (and get) your money matters for sure, but it is hardly all that matters; just as import is what you do with it now that it’s yours, however legitimately or questionably earned. Are you using it thoughtfully and to good purpose, with kindness and generosity to others, or are you squandering it senselessly, or amassing it blindly, and making it all just about you, or about nothing in particular?

If it all came to you not so much by your own efforts as by fortuitous circumstance or the grace of others, as in gifts and inheritances and the like, I am not inclined to question your claims. Only in that case it should be all the easier to see your treasure for the gift of fortune that it always is, even in cases where it may look more deserved. I stay away from such judgments of desert; it’s yours, that’s good enough for me, and all I would add is, enjoy your good fortune and use it to the full, but use it well, please—for your own enjoyment and the benefit of those closest to you, certainly, but also with some view to making your fellow human beings a little better off, in whatever manner you see fit to share with them.

I think of it on a loose analogy with electricity. No amount of charge you put on something is all that impressive; but let even a small current flow and the results can be extraordinary. Say you earned it yourself (the money I mean): wonderful, if it was done in a way that gives occasion for justified pride. But are you saying it was all your doing alone? That would be foolish by any cosmology: not that it is ever luck alone that brings things to fruition, but are you really willing to claim that good fortune did not play a part, and a significant one? And once that much is granted, why would you want to keep it all to yourself? What a strange idea of the universe you would be living by if you only ever received its blessings, but weren’t willing to pass them along in your turn. (And not only to your little platoon either: your family, your circle, your tribe. That counts, but at a discounted rate the closer it gets to you.) Keep no tabs, and let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing, as Jesus put it so memorably (Matthew 6:3).

So how much should you give away? If you make it too formulaic, you are missing the point, which is not to do your duty only, but to cultivate certain habits of the heart via the wallet. A traditional idea is to tithe, that is to say, give away the tenth part of your earnings, but that is just a rule of thumb that may or may not apply to you. The point is not to calculate your dues, settling your business accounts with a benevolent universe, but to give with a cheerfulness of heart and openness of hand that reflects your gratitude for the good that has come your way. Not only God, everyone loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7—St. Paul on love, Meister Eckhart on yelping about God).

Even the miser is no exception; he likes a giver too, but does not reproach his own contrary ways because he believes in the rationalizations that have reduced him to subsisting on such pitiful terms with life and his fellow man. His failing, in other words, is largely one of being unable to apply what he likes to see in others to what he should do more of himself. The test case would be someone who praises tightfistedness not in himself, but in others, and expresses sincere affection and admiration for that mode of being, especially when the stinginess is turned his way. Show me such a case who is not completely run-down or mad, and I may reconsider; until then I would not take any part of the miser’s arid heart in return for all his wealth. In any but ledger terms, he is a desperately poor fellow, a fit object for compassion only, sunk too low even for contempt.

If it sounds to you as if I am preaching some lofty ideal of self-abnegation here, you are hearing me all wrong. Calls for the impossible are not my thing, and neither is arduous self-sacrifice, as being far too demanding for the rest of us in the unsaintly set. If you have nothing to give at the moment, don’t worry about it. If you have a little to spare, give a few pennies, like the poor widow that Jesus praised so lavishly. If you have more, give as much as you can with an open heart. What I am talking about is a spirit of sharing your blessings; you will find, I think, that it becomes far more liberating and pleasurable with practice than keeping things too much to yourself. If you let the current flow, you are helping the goodness spread and return to you with greater ease. A higher kind of selfishness, if you want, but why not. If, on the other hand, all you can think about is your own abundance and gratification, and you see (or better, feel) no reason to be generous with it, then you are desiccated already and well on the way towards petrifaction.

Think of it this way: if you cannot find a way to let your money give you and others more of the worldly freedom and happiness for which so many human beings have yearned in vein—and which has a material dimension to be sure—then what was the point of all the toil and sacrifice that went into producing all this wealth? Whether it was really worth the full measure of blood, sweat, and tears that went into watering the fields that yielded such rich harvests over time, who knows. But now that it has been created at such a cost and passed into your hands, it would be the height of inhumanity and barbarity to dump it into the sea, as some have urged. Honor the sacrifice and make the best of the abundant possibilities it presents you with, remembering how very few human beings have been so lucky. None of this sounds to me like material for Sunday school or a sermon, but the plainest common sense.

Nor am I claiming much originality; it all looks like an extrapolation from ancient wisdom to me, seasoned with a bit of Adam Smith, whose claims to being a moral philosopher I have no trouble crediting. I am not telling anyone to feel bad about his or her advantages, or thundering that the gates of heaven are barred to the rich any more than to the poor. I am not suggesting that anyone give it all away to save his soul, or adjust his standard of living to some abstract level constructed around averages and conditions half-way across the globe, or around the tender theoretical sensitivities of the Harvard faculty club so long as their own pay is not at stake. All I am saying is that anyone in the fortunate position of having means to spare, especially when they are ample, would be well-advised to cultivate a taste for sharing, lest the abundant fruit turn to ashes in his mouth. Even there I may be mistaken and unadulterated selfishness may turn out to be its own best reward after all; it’s possible, but I have trouble imagining it.

Having read this far, you may nod in agreement, and add merely the seemingly slight reservation that you are only willing to support deserving individuals and worthy causes, in effective ways. Very well, as a matter of sound policy and the discriminate use of hard-earned money in a world of scarcity; but not what I am talking about. I have nothing to say against optimizing, in its proper place, but my concern here is with the heart, not with performance indicators. I said to give because it does you good, and because you were asked (see Post #22). How much your donation will truly benefit the receiver is another matter, and not for you to say; at any rate, I don’t believe you have to answer for the incalculable outcome, except in some exceptional circumstances. To premise one’s giving on judgements of the recipient's merit makes it no longer a question of charity and compassion, it seems to me, but of presumption and putting oneself above others. Perhaps it is right to do so, from a certain angle; efficient folk do make the world go round, granted, but they do so by knowing better than others—sound worldly counsel, perhaps, but not a great strategy for opening the heart.

(To Chris H.)