Quote of the Day (Edith Wharton, on ‘The Only Way Not to Think About Money’)

“The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.” — Pulitzer Prize-winning American fiction writer Edith Wharton (1862-1937), The House of Mirth (1905)

The image accompanying this post comes from the very fine 2000 adaptation of Edith Wharton’s classic novel, showing heroine Lily Bart (played by Gillian Anderson) with the confidante she shares this line with about money, the middle-class lawyer Lawrence Selden (played by Eric Stoltz).

Quote of the Day (Thomas Paine, Foreseeing the Need for Social Security)

“The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are capable of good. I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, while so much misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the misery, and the unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they may be suffocated cannot be extinguished, are a greater drawback upon the felicity of affluence than the proposed ten per cent upon property is worth. He that would not give the one to get rid of the other has no charity, even for himself.”—English-born American patriot and pamphleteer Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Agrarian Justice Opposed to Agrarian Law, and to Agrarian Monopoly; Being a Plan for Meliorating the Condition of Man (1797)

Thomas Paine is most famous for laying out the case for American independence in Common Sense, then sustaining that cause through “the times that try men’s souls” in The Crisis Papers. Less well-known is his advocacy for bridging the growing gap between rich and poor through something like the modern welfare state.

Indeed, he has been called “The Father of Social Security,” and Agrarian Justice, one of his last great pamphlets, can be found on the Website of the Social Security Administration.

Paine was appalled not just by the wretched poverty he had seen in France and his native England, but also by religious rhetoric regarding it as the natural order of the world. (Indeed, he had thought of withholding publication until war had ceased between the two countries, but decided to express his thoughts immediately when he heard of a sermon by an English bishop entitled, “The Wisdom and Goodness of God, in having made both rich and poor.")

The French mathematician and philosopher Condorcet had preceded Paine in recommending a social insurance scheme for the aged and for young people just starting out in life, but Paine demonstrated for the first time how it might be economically feasible with a proposal for a 10% tax on inherited property.

His thinking was all the more remarkable because, as implied by the second and third sentences in the passage above, he had not in the slightest abandoned his belief in the right of private property.

It would take the worst excesses of the Industrial Revolution and the need to defuse the rising labor radicalism it unleashed for others to lay the political foundation for Paine’s prescient economic idea.

Now, it has taken such root with the American public that Senator Rick Scott was forced to exclude Social Security and Medicare from his proposal to “sunset” federal legislation, once it became a potential campaign target for the Democratic Party.

For more information on the background to Paine’s pioneering pamphlet, I recommend Bernard Vincent’s discussion in The Transatlantic Republic: Thomas Paine and the Age of Revolutions, and a 2014 interview with Brown University political scientist Alex Gourevitch on “The Junto,” a group blog on early American history.

Quote of the Day (Oliver Goldsmith, on ‘The Man of Wealth and Pride’)

“The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds:
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth.”—Anglo-Irish poet, playwright and novelist Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), “The Deserted Village” (1770)

Quote of the Day (Theodore Roosevelt, on ‘The Men of Mere Wealth’)

“The men of mere wealth never can have and never should have the capacity for doing good work that is possessed by the men of exceptional mental training; but that they may become both a laughing stock and a menace to the community is made unpleasantly apparent by that portion of the New York business and social world which is most in evidence in the papers.”—Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26^th President of the United States, “The College Graduate and Public Life,” originally printed in The Atlantic Monthly, August 1894, reprinted in American Ideals, and Other Essays, Social and Political (1897)

TR explained further about the dangers of “malefactors of great wealth” in a speech 13 years after the publication of the above article. I considered his prescient warning about these men who hoped to “enjoy unmolested the fruits of their own evil-doing” in this post from 14 years ago.

Quote of the Day (F. Scott Fitzgerald, on the Search for Love by ‘The Rich Boy’)

"I don’t think he was ever happy unless someone was in love with him, responding to him like filings to a magnet, helping him to explain himself, promising him something. What it was I do not know. Perhaps they promised that there would always be women in the world who would spend their brightest, freshest, rarest hours to nurse and protect that superiority he cherished in his heart." — American novelist and short-story writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), “The Rich Boy,” in All the Sad Young Men (1926)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. John Chrysostom, on Greed, an ‘Unrestrainable Frenzy’)

“Now tell me why is wealth an object of ambition?.... To the majority of those who are afflicted with this grievous malady it seems to be more precious than health and life, and public reputation, and good opinion, and country, and household, and friends, and kindred and everything else….Nor is there any one to quench this fire: but all people are engaged in stirring it up, both those who have been already caught by it, and those who have not yet been caught, in order that they may be captured. And you may see everyone, husband and wife, household slave, and freeman, rich and poor, each according to his ability carrying loads which supply much fuel to this fire by day and night: loads not of wood or faggots (for the fire is not of that kind), but loads of souls and bodies, of unrighteousness and iniquity. For such is the material of which a fire of this kind is wont to be kindled. For those who have riches place no limit anywhere to this monstrous passion, even if they compass the whole world: and the poor press on to get in advance of them, and a kind of incurable craze, and unrestrainable frenzy and irremediable disease possesses the souls of all. And this affection has conquered every other kind and thrust it away, expelling it from the soul.”—Father of the Eastern Church and Bishop of Constantinople St. John Chrysostom (345-407), “No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Harm Himself,” translated by W.R.W. Stephens, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 9, edited by Philip Schaff (1889).

I wish that a picture of the eloquent preacher who said these words, St. John Chrysostom (the surname means “golden-mouthed”), would interest people enough to read these words. But I’m afraid that an illustration of a figure from nearly two millennia ago is not someone to capture the attention of a 21^st century reader.

So, I thought I would use an image likely to be more familiar to the common reader—or, at least, film fans, since mass entertainment is the unlikely modern equivalent of the ancient parable.

So, in case you are wondering: yes, that is director John Huston, in a role he took on increasingly on in the last two decades of his long Hollywood career—actor—facing Jack Nicholson (back to the camera, in shadow), in the great 1974 neo-noir classic, Chinatown.

Huston’s character, a jovial-seeming industrialist called Noah Cross, is one of the great villains of movie history. The name itself is ironic: read one way, it suggests an Old Testament patriarch, along with New Testament redemptive qualities.

But as Nicholson’s private eye, Jake Gittes, discovers, this figure is behind the massive diversion of water from farms to Los Angeles. And the “Cross” surname might as well be short for “double-cross,” for few evils are beyond this magnate’s thirst for money, including municipal corruption, murder and child molestation.

In one of the most striking exchanges in Robert Towne’s Oscar-winning screenplay, Gittes probes for the motive behind all this, asking Cross, “How much are you worth?”

Cross: “I have no idea. How much do you want?”

Gittes: “I just wanna know what you're worth. More than 10 million?”

Cross: “Oh my, yes!”

Gittes: “Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can't already afford?”

Cross: “The future, Mr. Gittes! The future.”

Beware of a pursuit of wealth so frenzied that it mortgages the future of society, the film tells us. It does indeed become what Chrysostom cautioned of: “a kind of incurable craze and unrestrainable frenzy and irremediable disease [that] possesses the souls of all.” 

Or, as Gittes warned in Chinatown's climax, about the poisonous influence of Cross: "He's rich! Do you understand? He thinks he can get away with anything."

Quote of the Day (John Maynard Keynes, on Wealth Inequality)

“I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth, but not for such large disparities as exist today. There are valuable human activities which require the motive of money-making and the environment of private wealth-ownership for their full fruition. Moreover, dangerous human proclivities can be canalised into comparatively harmless channels by the existence of opportunities for money-making and private wealth, which, if they cannot be satisfied in this way, may find their outlet in cruelty, the reckless pursuit of personal power and authority, and other forms of self-aggrandisement. It is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens; and whilst the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative. But it is not necessary for the stimulation of these activities and the satisfaction of these proclivities that the game should be played for such high stakes as at present.”—English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935)

TV Quote of the Day (‘Succession,’ on Rich People in Jail)

[On a Presidential campaign ad he’s paid for, Connor Roy, scion of a filthy-rich family, has just announced that he won’t pay taxes, even if it means going to jail—a prospect that horrifies half-sister Shiv.]

Siobhan (Shiv) Roy [played by Sarah Snook]: “Connor, you know what they do to rich people in jail.”

Connor Roy [played by Alan Ruck, pictured]: “Yes, they let them out early to mitigate the risk of litigation.”— Succession, Season 2, Episode 3, “Hunting,” original air date Aug. 25, 2019, teleplay by Jesse Armstrong and Tony Roche, directed by Andrij Parekh

Quote of the Day (Thorstein Veblen, on ‘Individuals With an Aberrant Temperament’)

“Only individuals with an aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows.”— Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

Song Lyric of the Day (Joni Mitchell, on ‘Where the Wealth's Displayed’)

“Where the wealth's displayed

Thieves and sycophants parade
And where it's made
The slaves will be taken.” — Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, “Dog Eat Dog,” from her CD of the same name (1985)

(The photo of Ms. Mitchell accompanying this post came from an Asylum Records ad from 1974.)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. James, on the Rich and the Poor in Religious Assemblies)

“For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit at my feet,’  have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?  Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?  But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you, is it not they who drag you into court?”—James 2: 2-6 (Revised Standard Version)

The image accompanying this post, of St. James the Apostle, was created in 1516 by the German Renaissance painter Albrecht Durer (1471-1528).

Quote of the Day (Joseph Conrad, on Youth Vs. Wealth As Assets)

“The audacity of youth reckons upon what it fancies an unlimited time at its disposal; but a millionaire has unlimited means in his hand—which is better. One's time on earth is an uncertain quantity, but about the long reach of millions there is no doubt.” — Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (1904)

Quote of the Day (Aldous Huxley, on ‘The Leisured Rich’ and the Poor)

“The leisured rich, who are not paid to do anything, themselves pay for the privilege of filling their vacuum with active occupations or passive diversions. Sport in all its varieties, alcohol and elaborate eating, love-making, theater-going, card-playing—these are some of the activities and diversions with which the rich can afford to fill up the aching void of their leisure. By means of such distractions they contrive to keep boredom and melancholia at bay….To the onlooker, the leisures of the rich may not provide a particularly uplifting spectacle; but for the rich themselves unemployment is not intolerable. A poor man, living at subsistence level, can buy no opiates or stimulants. Foe him, the vacuum of leisure is complete. He is exposed to the full force of boredom and depression. He is never able to forget, as the rich man can forget in the whirl of his distractions, the futility of a life deprived of sense or purpose and contributing nothing to the greater life of society at large. The effects of prolonged and unmitigated leisure are appalling. Slowly and insidiously it tends to reduce its victims to a kind of living death.”  — English novelist/essayist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), “The Man Without a Job,” December 20, 1936, in Aldous Huxley, Between the Wars: Essays and Letters, edited by David Bradshaw (1994)

These days, addiction rates are twice as high among the jobless as among those with a job, according to the information web guide Addiction Center. So Huxley’s contention about the poor man being unable to buy “opiates or stimulants” does not hold true today, no matter what may have happened when he wrote this during the Great Depression that gripped both side sides of the Atlantic.

Huxley—who, later in life, experimented with mescaline and LSD—recognized, in his 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World, that “psychotropic drugs were not just toys for recreational purposes but had the power to fuel political and religious change,” according to this Oxford University Press blogpost by pharmacology professor Richard J. Miller of Northwestern University.

Huxley's other point, about the poor being exposed to “the full force of boredom and depression,” remains true, as does his warning about “prolonged and unmitigated leisure” among what used to be called the “idle rich.” The impact of the current COVID-induced recession will take a long time to sort out, but the psychological effects cannot be discounted.

Quote of the Day (Tony Judt, on Why ‘The Rich Do Not Want the Same Thing as the Poor’)

“The rich do not want the same thing as the poor…. Those who do not need public services—because they can purchase private transport, education, and protection—do not seek the same thing as those who depend exclusively on the public sector.”— British historian/essayist Tony Judt (1948-2010), Ill Fares the Land (2010)

The next few weeks may bring about the ramifications of this in the Republican tax plan now unveiled on Capitol Hill. Maybe the hit to the state-and-local tax deduction—especially common in states such as New York and New Jersey, which tend to fund public services more generously—will help leave this bill dead on arrival. We shall see. But, far from “draining the swamp” in DC, this bill only leaves the alligators—those in the 1%--more alive than ever.

Quote of the Day (Fran Lebowitz, on a False Choice for NYC)

“Usually people say, ‘Oh, did you like it better when the city was dangerous and dirty?’ No, I didn’t. But those things do not go hand in hand. The choice shouldn’t be between dangerous and dirty, or clean and psychotically expensive. That means only rich people can come here, and let’s face it, they’re not your most fascinating people.”— Essayist/cultural critic Fran Lebowitz quoted in “Party Lines,” New York Magazine, May 4-7, 2015

Or, to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway's (invented) exchange with F. Scott Fitzgerald:

"The rich are different from you and me."

"Yes, they're more boring."

Wow...Who knew?

TV Quote of the Day (SNL’s ‘Arianna Huffington,’ on American Women in Europe)

“It doesn’t matter if you wear glasses or you forget to wash your hair, or you have Nutella stuck in your teeth, European men will think you’re sexy. You know how it smells, Seth, when you walk into a room where people just did sex? Yeah, that’s what it smells like when you get off the plane in Europe.”—“Arianna Huffington” (played by Nasim Pedrad) to Seth Meyers, on the “Weekend Update” segment, Saturday Night Live, Season 38, Episode 12, January 26, 2013, directed by Don Roy King

Today is the 65^th birthday of the real-life Arianna Huffington, whom former journalist Sidney Blumenthal once called “the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus.” Nasim Pedrad’s impression only seems over the top if you haven’t seen the real Ms. Huffington, in all her glory, on a TV show, such as her appearances on Bill Maher's talk show.

Before her current incarnation, as the entrepreneur who founded the liberal blog “The Huffington Post” 10 years ago, this chameleon had been a biographer of Maria Callas and Pablo Picasso, a GOP political wife, a cable TV guest, a failed gubernatorial candidate in her own right, an environmentalist, and a blogger.

It was as an outgrowth of that last role that Ms. Huffington came into her current position as an Internet mogul. That success is, like the lady herself, outrageous, paradoxical and confounding.

Give her credit—she has never stiffed others after assuring them that they would be paid in good time, as a certain hair-challenged GOP candidate did in his not-so-distant past as a businessman “surviving at the top” by keeping creditors barely at bay. No, she has been open about the tradeoff with countless bloggers: they would receive much-desired exposure, as long as they did it for free.

Something must be wrong with Google’s algorithm: When you search “Huffington Post” and “wage slavery,” you come up with all kinds of articles written for the "Post" itself about underpaid workers, but never about its own compensation practices concerning the thousands of scribes whose work has turbocharged the site that made Ms. Huffington very rich lady. (See this New York Magazine article from a few years ago that looked at the issue in dry-eyed but unblinking fashion.)

It’s hard to think that Ms. Huffington has been in her current role for a decade now. Considering her history, it’s surprising that she hasn’t morphed into another identity yet. Whatever she chooses to be, the only constant in her life will be that she’ll remain just as charming as she is crafty.