At the European Synod, the bishop of Rotterdam urged us “to reduce substantially the egotistical consumption of the earth’s goods in the first world.” Such appeals are common in religious and humanitarian circles. What is at issue?
The assumption behind this statement is that the consumption in the first world is the cause of the problems in the rest of the world. If this consumption is substantially reduced, there will be more for others. The reason others do not have is because of “egoism?’
Thus, the world’s problem lies in moral discipline. What is presupposed here is a zero-sum world—a finite amount of worldly goods exist. If some get more, others will have less. Social and economic problems are to be confronted primarily by ascetical or moral means of self-discipline and retrenchment. Ecological and population control theories link with ascetical remedies on this presupposition of a rapidly deteriorating world supply of goods.
At first sight, this may seem logical, even virtuous. No doubt, pudgy folks, who could use a little dieting, exist in the first world. But reduction of food consumption makes little overall difference. This scrimping does not cause others to have more.
Ultimately, the reason the poor are poor is not because the rich are rich. We want the poor to have a sufficiency of worldly goods, to be relatively rich, in fact. This is both possible and what should occur. If not, it is neither due to a lack of knowledge nor a lack of material goods to serve human needs.
Sir John Pringle, Boswell recalls, once remarked that as Adam Smith, author of Wealth of Nations, was “never in a trade, he could not write well on that topic.” Samuel Johnson replied:
He is mistaken, Sir: a man who has never been engaged in trade himself may undoubtedly write well upon trade, and there is nothing which requires more to be illustrated by philosophy than trade does. As to mere wealth, that is to say, money, it is clear that one nation or one individual cannot increase its store but by making another poorer; but trade procures what is more valuable, the reciprocation of the peculiar advantage of different countries.
Perhaps the bishop of Rotterdam should spend more time seeking the causes of wealth rather than poverty. For example, if the total amount of money is one thousand gold coins, and each of a thousand persons has one coin, then if someone has more, someone else has less. If wealth is not finite, but capable of increasing by trade or innovation, then everyone could have more without someone having less. Moreover, it is not a tragedy if some have more, others less.
The question is how to produce more, not how to take from him who has more and give to him who has less, largely through the taxing-coercive instrumentality of the state. The solution of poverty is not redistribution, but creating more. Government, by not understanding or allowing what produces wealth, is probably the major cause of poverty in the world.
The ultimate source of wealth is not land or even capital, but intelligence. The earth and the universe surrounding it are not a finite gold mine out of which we can only take so much. We do not even know what we can take until we know what is out there and what we can do with it.
Was the bishop of Rotterdam’s concern with asceticism completely wrong then? Central to understanding Western intelligence since Plato is that the rule of ourselves is our first task. Self-rule is based on the initial choice about that to which all our actions are directed. If they are simply directed to ourselves or to more wealth as such, this is a disorder of soul. But more wealth may in fact be quite a reasonable thing for which to devote one’s life. If the purpose of wealth production is to support human life and family in all its flourishing, then it is a noble purpose. The poor are helped primarily by teaching them to help themselves. Asceticism enables us to use our minds to a proper end.