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Wealth demonstrating moral virtue

Sep 1st, 2012 by

When and why has wealth become a sign of moral virtue in the US?

• The Protestant ethic a la Max Weber?

• Years of promises from televangelists: send me money and God will make you rich?

• Other?

Posted in Culture

4 Responses to “Wealth demonstrating moral virtue”

  1. H. M. Stuart says:
    September 4, 2012 at 1:57 am

    My good Karen,

    I had meant to get to this earlier, but I was building a new machine and became preoccupied.

    You have thrown together something of an uncritically examined salad of random ingredients here, but let me see if I can help refine your query.

    The notions of what is known in Christian churches as the Prosperity Gospel (capitalized or not) I cannot really speak to, but perhaps our good Turmarion, Hector, or others can. This one would be, for me, the most random ingredient in your three-bean salad.

    Let me, however, start with “Other” and then work backward to give a nod to Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

    If we understand human beings to be Dionysian mortal creatures born destined to be compost who yet dialectically live our lives under the Apollonian illusion that we are not, then evidence of accomplishment becomes (Apollonian) virtue in the face of that otherwise (Dionysian) futility of mortality.

    I was a slave, I labored for a master all my days, the sum of every day was pure expense, I had no children, and then I died, leaving no evidence of ever having lived.*

    I was mother of a nation, I created generations that endure as a people still recognized today.

    I was a Pharaoh, with my power I commanded millions, I caused to be created a pyramid that still stands 5,000 years hence.

    “Wealth” is never more than evidence of accomplishment, whether measured in dollars or flocks or babies sired or born, and to the extent it is considered a virtue it is because of what it as a cumulative repository represents of a life of active accomplishment of whatever relative degree: I was an illegal Mexican immigrant; I worked hard all my days and saved and put five children through college, a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, a priest, and a pro athlete.

    To the extent one’s moral virtues are driven to be more ascetic than less (Weber’s Protestant ethic), wealth represents the net sum of hard won accomplishment over and above the minimal losses afforded by an accompanying ascetic frugality.

    Wealth can only ensue as accomplishment from effort, though, where one can own the fruits of one’s efforts – physical, mental, natal – in some form.

    Anyway, that is my brief response. Elaborate your query further and you may have more.

    H. M. Stuart
    Alexandria

    *See, for example, Hannah Arendt’s animal laborans.

  2. Karen Street says:
    September 5, 2012 at 7:18 am

    There are lots of types of wealth. There is the satisfaction of working hard and putting one’s children through college. There is the satisfaction of having lived a good life. And there is money, acquired through inheritance, hard work, talent, luck, misdeeds, or a combination.

    It seems to me that among conservative Christians, and many who are secular, the extremely clear messages of the New Testament (“it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”) have been displaced by the idea that lots and lots and lots of money is a sign of God’s love or/and respect. Yes, yes, that belief has always been in the US, always strong. But now I hear it in a stronger, purer form than at any time in my life. I don’t hear that there are many ways to heaven, including extreme wealth.

    For example, in the Republican convention, speaker after speaker seemed to say, my family came here dirt poor and now I’m wealthy. I did not hear any part of “”Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

    What do you hear?

    • Edward T. Haines says:
      September 5, 2012 at 8:08 am

      Karen observes that, “speaker after speaker seemed to say, my family came here dirt poor and now I’m wealthy…”

      Actually, I commented to my wife last evening that it appears that a near mandatory element of every political speech is to relate how one’s ancestors came to the US poor and starving and succeeded in educating their children through hard work and integrity. Since the ancestors in these cases are generally parents or grandparents, the Kennedys are at distinct disadvantage these days.

  3. H. M. Stuart says:
    September 6, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    My good Karen,

    Notwithstanding that you now seem to be universalizing the Prosperity Gospel to all conservative Christians at large while contraposing that exfusion to the stirring political words of the playboy son of a Depression-era millionaire drug runner, one Jon Eisenberg commenting on NRP’s Marketplace appears to be hearing exactly the same phrase:

    This question [Are you better off today? HMS] is so selfish. What happened to “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”? That said, the country is one heck of a lot better off than it was in 2008 when the incompetent George W. Bush was president, we were deeply engaged in two (unfunded) wars and our economy was hemorrhaging 400-800K jobs every month.

    H. M. Stuart
    Alexandria