Yet paradoxically Jesus says the complete opposite. This more than anything probably would be reason for many to ignore him. How can he make any sense?
In Greek Luke 6:20 : Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί (translated as : blessed are the poor) and in Matthew 5:3 the same Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι (blessed are the poor in spirit). Μακάριοι means roughly happy, and πτωχοί destitute and opposite of wealthy. Definitely an apparent and deliberate oxymoron.
When Adam Smith writes his "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" he is looking not just into the wealth, but also the assumed happiness as well. One and the other are linked in Western thinking.
Large chunks of this blog devoted to smashing that connection and arguing that wealth is relative. The blessed in New Guinean tribes may have a colourful headdress of rare bird feathers. Turn up to work in New York with that and you will be laughed at. Wealth is contextual and social.
But surely there are unconditional needs and necessities without which all people feel poor. In Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" he argues that even within the depths of the depravity that was the Nazi Holocaust the victims could still discover wealth. He describes a young woman who is near death:
“This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard," she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously." Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, "This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness." Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. "I often talk to this tree," she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. "Yes." What did it say to her? She answered, "It said to me, 'I am here-I am here-I am life, eternal life.”
Is this the "poor" that Jesus is speaking of? In our wealthy and luxurious lives we actually obscure the true wealth that lies throughout this world. The destitute have access to a wealth that the rich have actually obliterated with all the lazy comfort and dazzlingly full lives.
What do the ascetics and Cynics find in their self imposed solitude and poverty? Buddha famously tackled this problem at the outset of his enquiry into happiness. He took on an ultimately ascetic life driven by the Hindu belief that Tapas and spiritual wealth was gained through self mortification and torment. This is an old idea as well. It comes down to the West as Jesus hanging on a cross and later Odin hanging on Yggdrasil. Jesus won eternal life, and Odin amongst other things was given the Runes.
After almost killing himself with starvation Buddha realised that such extreme torment was not progressing him toward Enlightenment and he broke his self torture. The story goes that resting under a tree he was given a bowl of rice pudding by a girl believing him to be the spirit of that tree. In that simple act of giving Buddha realised that accepting nourishment and kindness were necessary parts of the spiritual life. There was indeed a Middle Way between absolute mortification and indulgence. His period of asceticism did provide him with progress, but to teach him it was wrong rather than the correct way.
I have argued before in the blog that regardless of Middle Path there is no absolute level of wealth. It may indeed turn out that we are, like the girl in Auschwitz, so impoverished that we will die from our deprivation but this does not exclude us from true wealth. However Buddha is saying that such deprivation does nothing for our spiritual growth. Being so deprived can upset our strength and peace so that we have little energy and resolve to progress our spiritual growth. But having too much physical wealth can have the same effect also, and obscure our path with more base activities.
I am resistant to draw a bell curve here and say that there is an optimal level of wealth. It is I maintain relative. Where the optimal falls for one person and another, and one culture and another will be different. In a society of great wealth it may well be higher than in a society of great simplicity. Seeing a branch of a tree outside your window may be wealth enough in a community of people with so little.
But I hope this post has thrown a spanner in the works of the Economic view of Wealth and Happiness. The pursuit of Happiness and Wealth are really quite separate and disconnected. It is sufficient for a society to supply only enough wealth that people may be able to find the right level of poverty.
The goal of true economics is not riches, but simply the give people the opportunity to find the right level of poverty.
==Addition
Buddha gives us a very simple manifesto on happiness that covers much of the above (printed in full below)
With special significance to Economics are lines 3,4
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skilful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
May they be content and easily supported,
unburdened with their senses calmed.
May they be wise,
not arrogant and without desire for the possessions of others.
There is a Chinese saying that it is easier for a poor man to live in a rich man's house than vice versa. Returning to the relative nature of wealth, for a poor man being given an apple is a great treat and something they will appreciate. But for a rich man such an identical act may have much less meaning. In this way the poor man lives in a richer world than the rich man. This is very much the irony of wealth. The Metta Sutra is saying that a peaceful and calm mind is much more open to the world and finds greater and deeper satisfaction in its existence. While the wealthy mind may become distracted and be always running in search of new experiences and "hits" each needing to be greater than the last to break through the noise and insensitivity of the mind. Such a mind is poor because it needs so much to even be normal. We all know the deep satisfaction that comes from appreciating something simple, but fully. We may not be able to attain it very easily if our lives are busy and distracted, but we know that this is true happiness. I requires discipline and frugality to slow down the running machine of expectations and wants so that we can step off and be at peace.
Not also that in the second translation we are asked to not be have desire for the possessions of others. Not quite the 10th Commandment of the Jews, but a gentle reminder that happiness lies in appreciating what you have got, and not always wishing you had what other people have. You will always meet people with things you want, and uncontrolled you may feel that your life is then less worthwhile. But a moments self-reproach will reveal that one minute you are happy with what you have, and now compared with another you are no longer happy without anything actually changing except your mind! It is our minds that make us wealth or impoverished. And if it is our minds that make us feel wealthy or impoverished then why should what another has make any difference? Quickly we see the error in such thinking, and how basing our happiness on what we have is a recipe for unhappiness. We do not account what we have to be happy, we simply appreciate what we have. This is especially true of our families. Often I imagine (I am not married) we may find reason to be unhappy with our partner. And sometimes we may trip into thinking they are flawed and a bad partner, someone we should separate from. Yet a moments reflection may reveal that it is our mind that is changing more than our partner. Indeed they may have changed, but it is much more likely that our mind has changed. If we remember to appreciate what we have, even if it is just a branch in our window, we are on the path to happiness. And when we are happy, our partner is much more likely to be happy too, so it is not just selfish to be content but a benefit to all.
How that passage flies in the face of Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand. For Adam Smith each person striving for what they want in a perfectly free market leads to everything falling into the rights hands at the right price. I have proven this to myself with computer models. There is a better system however which Smith never looks at. His is a system of exchange, where you buy and sell things. In a system where you give what you think people need, and what you can spare it actually arrives at the Smith equilibrium only much faster. The reason is that for an exchange to occur in Smiths economics both parties have to be able to exchange. In the Giving system it does not require exchange, so goods can change hands immediately without waiting for payment. I will explore the mathematics of the giving system in detail at some stage. Both systems suffer from cheats. Smith is very careful to point out that Invisible Hand only works in a legal system. Likewise the Giving system can lead to generous individuals being exploited by selfish individuals (who from the analysis here are also unhappy - one flaw of the view that wealth is happiness is that cheats are seen as winners which means that people think that we need the Smith system, but actually cheats become unhappy and no human legal system is needed to ensure this! It is called Karma in the East and Wrath of God in the West).
A quick addendum on frugality and middle path. All economics does require the flow of good from producers to consumers. If people become misers then economics grinds to a halt. Frugality does not mean "miser". Excellent example of the poverty of being a miser at the start of this video: Why Frugal Living May Not Make You Happy. Frugality simple means being enjoying the happiness of being peaceful and content, not expecting continual happiness from material possessions, not endlessly striving for new things, but rather turning down the volume and the contrast, re balancing and appreciating what you have. Perhaps having a conversation with the branch that you can see from your window.
.oO= Metta Sutra =Oo.
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skilful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
Addition: just to summarise the practical economic parts of this. There are 2 laws (1) That wealth is relative and (2) that wealth has an optimum. Combined we have the following relationship between happiness and wealth.
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