The rich man as a business man—The conduct of a successful business—Money-making the incentive—Money no measure of merit or worth in men—Or in works of art—Financiers—The power of money—Imperialism—Political power—Experiments of millionaires—Gifts—Money administered by corporations or the State.

So far the type chosen has been that of an aristocratic landed proprietor. But aristocrats and landowners are not all rich men, nor are all rich men aristocrats or landed proprietors. A large proportion are business men who have made or are making their fortunes through some commercial undertaking or from successful speculations. Once the business man has succeeded he is pretty sure to buy an estate, but there are many rich men who do not claim to be engaged in the “industry” of land proprietorship. In the argument we have to meet here it is claimed for money that it is the mainspring of initiative and enterprise in commerce, and is the just reward of skilful management and business ability.

But before proceeding let us remember once more the main premises of our contention. It may be as undesirable as it is impracticable to eliminate the undoubted incentive which the desire for more money creates. But it can be curbed before it reaches an exaggerated extreme, and it can be rationalised once people understand that great riches are no real reward, only mean excessive burden, do not minister to human happiness, and impose a responsibility which no living being is capable of discharging.

In the commercial world it is evident enough that the money-making ideal is far stronger and predominates over the ideal of securing perfection in production, which implies a proud ambition to produce the best goods under the best possible conditions. In the conflict between these two ideals is precisely where the danger lies. Tricks such as extensive and sensational advertisement and unscrupulous pushing are, as we all know, more favoured than the slower, more laborious, and less certain expedients of continually improving the methods of production and conditions of labour. Many a fortune has been made in the vast expansion of a concern far beyond its intrinsic merits simply by means of advertisement. The incentive in such a case is solely money-making. The talents required are those of an inferior order, such as astute business capacity and cunning. So far, therefore, as money-making is the ideal, it is neither to the advantage of the business nor to the advantage of the community, who are the consumers of whatever commodity the business turns out, any more than it is to the ultimate advantage, as already shown, of the man who enriches himself. The ambition of heads of firms to enrich themselves personally constitutes, in fact, the chief deterrent to permanently successful commercial enterprise. A further step is made in the wrong direction when the founder of a thriving business, having made his fortune and established the reputation of his firm, has his son or successor educated at a public school and university, where he may learn the manners and customs of the leisured classes. The result is that when the successor, who has not received a special technical business training and is therefore quite unfitted to keep abreast of the acute competition which he finds in the commercial world around him, takes over the business, it rapidly deteriorates, in spite of the abortive efforts of the new head, who probably thinks that by mere expenditure of money the situation can be saved. In instances such as these no defence can be made for the accumulation of capital in the hands of individuals. But let us take a better type. A man by his energy and industry creates a successful business. As his fortune grows he makes no difference in his private life beyond that which his increasing obligations absolutely necessitate. He judiciously sinks the greater part of his profits in his business in order to improve it continually in all its branches. He makes his son or successor go through the mill, educating him himself technically in every process connected with the work so that in his turn he will be thoroughly fitted to conduct the concern in the same progressive spirit. This case, where a man has resisted the temptation of taking full personal advantage of his riches to, what is called, “lift” himself into another sphere of society and consort with a different and, of course, we must say “higher” class, is not common. He has, so to speak, identified himself with his work, absorbed himself in its continuous efficiency, and, in fact, very properly treats his wealth as a trust created by those who are working for him and also by those who are consuming his produce, and he therefore returns it to them in the shape of more favourable conditions for his workers and improvements in machinery and methods of production, which permit a better and cheaper article to be delivered to the consumer. The danger in this is not connected with the conduct of the man himself, but it lies in the fact that this admirable manner of conducting the business and dealing with the profits depends solely on the one individual will. There is no security or guarantee that his successor will see fit to behave in the same way. The money, being in individual hands, will sooner or later fall into the less worthy grasp of a man whose interest in the business is insignificant compared with his desire to cut a figure of importance by means of his riches. Our ideal manufacturer is not treating the money or spending it as if it were his own. But nevertheless it is his own to dispose of, and he will leave his large profits to a successor on whose whim and fancy the responsibility of their administration again rests.

There is no reason why he should not raise himself into another plane and, after resigning the management of his business to other hands, extend his activities in another direction and achieve further success. For the few, however, who by force of character and exceptional ability are able to rise to the level of their new circumstances, there are many more who, simply taking advantage of their riches, abandon one form of activity, which was useful and in which they excelled, for the sake of associating themselves with a leisured, ease-loving, arid society to which they do not naturally belong and which they had been wiser to avoid. There are many men who can stand up against adversity, but it requires a character of great depth and force to keep its balance against success.

Acknowledged worldly success for which full credit is given publicly is not necessarily achieved by the exercise of superior intellectual or business ability, but can be obtained, just as titles and honours, by the judicious expenditure of money. It naturally appeals strongly to people who like appreciation and applause, and after all, who does not? But the worth of a man can no more be estimated by his money value than the worth of an article. The doctor who charges a high fee is not ipso facto a good doctor, but many of them are astute enough to see that by raising their fee they can enhance their reputation, so easily gullible do they know their rich patients to be. The same with lawyers, who trade on the folly of those who can afford the luxury of litigation. This expensive system reacts upon the administration of justice, because it means that in the majority of cases it is only the rich who can secure the best legal skill for their defence in the courts. Thus even our boasted equality before the law is not immune from this universal disease. In the scientific and creative world great achievements receive next to no recompense and often only very tardy recognition. Great services and great merit have no price: a gift of money is no reward for the man who has experienced the inestimable satisfaction of real achievement unless it is to prevent his falling into penury.

Public opinion is quite unable to judge true merit, so high fees, huge salaries, grants, and fabulous prices are reserved for those beings and those things to which fashion and popular clamour point at the moment. An Italian old master which fifty years ago could be bought for fifty pounds or so will now fetch as many hundreds or even thousands. A mezzotint which a few years back cost a trifling sum can now be sold for fifty times the amount. So it is with all objets d’art, plate, or furniture. The price does not represent value nor demand, but the passing fancy of rich collectors who set the fashion of the day which they and the dealers create among themselves without reference to artistic merit or good taste, or even popular appreciation. By the fabulous prices which nowadays are asked and given some estimate can be made of the resources of those who have got these vast sums to play with. So that even in the purchase of works of art, which need not be classed as luxuries, for they can be in the highest sense remunerative, an ever-increasing amount of money is absolutely wasted in speculation and gambling.

To maintain the supremacy of money as a standard, as a test, as a reward, and as an incentive, we have a whole body of professions exclusively devoted to the making of it for themselves and for us without our having the exertion of working for it. And yet they and their army of clerks have to slave in their offices, lending, borrowing, broking, speculating, gambling, company-promoting, constructing syndicates, creating trusts and combines, occupied with all the complicated and involved tricks of a trade which of all trades is the most tricky. They must not be too nice or too scrupulous. They must suppress any inclination they might naturally have to be sensitive or particular. They are occupied largely in trying secretly to get the better of someone else or sometimes in manipulations of a dubious, or perhaps we ought to say mysterious nature, and their profession, which is avowedly and exclusively to make money at all costs, must of necessity cast some blight on their lives and characters.

An increasingly large share of the wealth of the modern world falls into the hands of stock-brokers, company-promoters, and other financiers, who are the high priests of money. Such is their power in controlling the money market, manipulating prices, and directing gambling operations on the stock exchange that they gradually come to occupy the place of government not only in the world of finance, but in the industrial world and even to some extent in the world of politics. The large body of ordinary investors and speculators are completely at their mercy, for only a very few can pretend to master or follow the intricacies of this highly elaborated system which the large financiers have set up like a huge web to catch all contributions coming from the investments and savings of the general public. But the general business of private finance is the immediate concern of every man, and it is certainly the subject about which most people think they know something and many people know a good deal. Mystery pervades it. A man will tell you his professional experiences, he will even confide to you his domestic cares and his moral delinquencies, his religious views he is ready to lay bare before you. But on his financial affairs he will be silent, and no one would dream of committing the indiscretion of questioning him on so delicate and sacred a topic. Little or nothing is known of how a man comes by his money. The industry or ability he has displayed in making his fortune is not what is admired, but his actual riches. It never occurs to people to inquire if or how a man has earned his money, all they want to know is if he has actually got it.

Setting aside self-indulgence, the chief pleasure of riches is said to be the enjoyment of the power they give. This power, which we are trying to prove is only a power for harm, is associated with a sense of individual superiority. Whether in charity, philanthropy, patronage, or investment producing further gain, the predominant experience for the individual is personal triumph. It is not unjust to condemn the appreciation of power such as this as a low form of pleasure not only for its pure selfishness, but because triumph in this connection implies control of other individuals and power to gain advantage at their cost. It is a form of self-glorification and exultation which simply means that to have wealth is to have the whip hand.

No one hopes for or expects complete repression of self, but in any corporate action for a common object, where there is a certain necessary self-repression, the satisfaction to the individual is unquestionably higher and purer. At any rate, the idealisation of a personal pre-eminence and ascendancy which is supported on the clay feet of material possessions is idolatry of the most dangerous type. There is, moreover, attached to the possession of wealth another sort of power which is even more dangerous from the public and national point of view, but which is valued and appreciated even by those who recognise that sheer hedonism defeats its own object. It is the pressure which capital can bring to bear on the machinery of government. Private commercial interests can translate themselves into political influence both in particular constituencies and nationally through propaganda and the Press. They can foster the Imperialist spirit, which may mean the acquisition of more territory and the opening out of fresh markets for the investment of their capital. Meanwhile these enthusiastic Imperialists can pose as patriots, although the further filling of their pockets, and not the nation’s honour, is their objective. “The economic root of Imperialism,” says a modern economist,13 “is the desire of strong organised industrial and financial interests to secure and develop at the public expense and by the public force private markets for their surplus goods and their surplus capital. War, militarism, and a spirited foreign policy are the necessary means to this end.”

Imperialism, which depends on rousing the pugnacious and combative instincts latent in any people by exaggerating international differences and jealousies, is the national expression, under the guise of patriotism, of the desire for gain, territorial aggrandisement, profit and enrichment. It represents everything, in fact, that corresponds to the love of money-making in the individual. There is money even to be got out of arming your enemies, and there is no squeamishness shown about investing money in this way.

Although bribery can influence votes and a few constituencies can still be bought, the necessity of being a man of means in order to be admitted into active political life is happily a thing of the past. On the other hand, the influence of the capitalist press, run as it is now, chiefly as a financial speculation, has in later days grown to be a grave national peril. The power here exercised is of a very distinct and far-reaching description. The ambitions of capitalism and the demands of shareholders are interpreted as the will of the people, and the worst instincts of aggressive arrogance are traded upon to produce at the proper moment the scare or outburst of jingoism; at the same time, “popular” protests can be artificially engineered to stand against any movement which is likely to interfere with the ambitions of the wealthy.

Money, therefore, does mean power, but power of a pernicious description, “that of brute force, the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet and of the bribed press, tongue, and pen.”14

Having discussed worldliness, vanity, and self-indulgence as well as commercial enterprise and speculation, we must get to close quarters with an aspect of the problem which at first sight might seem to be an exception to our general condemnation of riches. What is the real effect of money spent by millionaires on philanthropic, scientific, or social experiments, and even educational endowments? Are we justified in hailing them as wholly and unquestionably beneficent?

That they should spend their money this way instead of on themselves must be acknowledged at once as preferable and as a step in a better direction. They gain immense applause from the world by their deeds, although, of course, no sacrifice whatever is involved. It is greatly to their credit that their intelligence should prompt them to attempt to benefit their fellows by a national and scientific exploration of new ground which may eventually lead to some permanent benefit to the human race. But while granting unreservedly the purity of their motives, we shall by a more exact examination of the nature, scope, and consequences of their action come to the following conclusions which amount to objections:

(1) The choice of the particular experiment and the decision as to whether it shall be embarked on at all rests with one individual will. The source of action therefore being an uncertain quantity which cannot be depended upon, this method of initiating works for the public benefit is incapable of being organised, controlled, or even relied upon. Indeed, millionaires are apt to be like spoilt children unless they can have the satisfaction of complete control over their exploits.

(2) The experiment selected may not be a wise one or in conformity with the ideals of real betterment, even though for a time it may receive the formal sanction of popular approval.

(3) Even if the experiment is admittedly useful and beneficial, it has a strong tendency to encourage us, who constitute the community as a whole, to think that as there are rich men who are sufficiently enterprising and public-spirited to undertake these schemes and works of general utility, it is unnecessary to organise corporate effort, to establish them ourselves. Moreover, there is limit of productivity in private enterprise.

(4) There are social schemes carefully conceived and elaborately worked out which fail because the very security of certain financial help and support has the effect of weakening initiative, choking enterprise, and preventing the growth of the just pride and self-reliance which individuals or bodies of individuals can only develop in an independent struggle with the chances and changes of their natural environment. Those who are supposed to benefit by the scheme are in fact, oppressed by the shadow of the heavy arm of the financial subsidy which dominates the whole situation. This may be unreasonable, but it is quite natural, and it shows that money poured out by one hand clogs the machinery of commercial and industrial life, falls, so to speak, into clots and cannot spread itself effectively as a lubricant into the many narrow and unseen corners of the domestic, municipal, or rural life and activities of the people.

(5) Lastly, or it should have been said, primarily, the paramount objection is that any good that may come from the particular scheme or experiment is completely outweighed by the wrong that has been perpetrated and the injury that has been inflicted, in countless ways and in numberless directions, by the withdrawal from healthy circulation and the accumulation of the very riches a part of which is now being returned to the community in this doubtful form.

It would be ungenerous to deny that great care and forethought have been exercised by the millionaires who have determined to devote a large part of their wealth to some great religious, social, scientific, or artistic cause. Distinct benefits have accrued from their action. But emphatically this does not mean that surplus wealth in individual hands can be used profitably. It means that human ingenuity, intelligence, and generous feeling can to some small extent mitigate in one direction the constant and pressing evils which the accumulation of riches has caused and is causing in a vastly more extensive way.

Another example about which some doubt might be expressed is that of a man struggling with his family on an income well below the limit, unable to develop his capacities and lead a decently useful life because of the constant pinch of want. Will not a gift of money which secures him a competence without affluence, frees his energies for higher work, and liberates him from the sordid and painful trials of poverty, will not such a gift be an unqualified advantage to him, and will not, therefore, the giver of that money be an exception to the axiom that superfluous wealth cannot be well spent?

The gift and its acceptance are not the only determining factors in the problem. If such a case is quite fairly stated, it shows that the donor was not giving part of his superfluous wealth, taking the definition of superfluous which has already been given. He is giving something which, as it turns out, he personally has the capacity to give in a profitable and fruitful manner, and which perhaps involves a certain amount of sacrifice on his part. This money therefore constitutes part of his competence and the gift is justifiable. But this can only be admitted to a very restricted extent. He must use the utmost discretion not to give too much, otherwise he will overstep the mark of prudence. He may be encouraged to make this gift too frequently and less discriminatingly. In short, the number of such cases, where the recipient is unmistakably benefited by an isolated gift of money, are very exceptional. If we are presupposing that our donor has money to play with and that his gift is made out of his superfluity, in this case, as in that of the millionaire’s experiment, his balance is on the wrong side, and more harm is being done by the retention of his surplus than good is done by his small, spasmodic endeavours at charitable help and subsidy, even though now and then they may be perfectly well directed.

Capital entrusted to companies, corporations, municipalities, or in the possession of the State, need not, from the bare fact of its being held conjointly by a number of people, be expended in a wise way or on remunerative works. But there is a very much better chance of its being well spent in the long run, where there is practically unlimited capacity in the joint efforts and united talents of a number of people, where there is disinterested control, and where that control is itself far from supreme, being subject to the direct supervision of electors or of the general community. Remonstrance, appeal, or protest in this case is always possible and effectual, but when an individual is the only dispenser of the funds, he is the sole arbiter and judge, has complete and despotic power, and is not answerable to any superior authority.

Further it cannot be seriously controverted that money, circulating in small sums in the hands of the mass of the people and devoted for the most part to the purchase of the necessaries of life, is infinitely more conducive to productive expenditure than money hoarded in large quantities to be administered by a small class for their own advantage.