258:…and…Murderers!!”

We return to the English resort town of Tunbridge Wells. It is the evening of February 16, 1858, and the celebrated author, John Ruskin, is in the midst of his invited lecture, “The Work of Iron in Nature, Art and Policy.” He has just surprised (and very likely shocked and offended many in) his well-bedecked and bejeweled audience by informing them that, in effect, they are–as the great playwright, George Bernard Shaw, will later characterize his assertion some decades later in an essay written in celebration of the centenary of Ruskin’s birth, little more than “a parcel of thieves,” a congeries of quiet crooks who, as a matter of course in their daily dealings in the business world, have systematically devised a series of tactics– which they can practice with impunity because they are powerful–that are designed to withhold from the weakest among them a portion of the monies these disadvantaged need to live decent lives, becoming, in the wake of such blameworthy exercises, complicit in, and– even more reprehensibly–creators of, the omnipresent poverty that makes miserable the lives of so many millions who live near them in the world of the Industrial Revolution (see Post 256), as the contemporary images below–of a London street, a workhouse, and a bridge, attest!

But Ruskin is hardly finished with this night’s accusations directed at those who have braved the winter chill. There is more–and considerably worse– to come. And so, as his audience, which, not long before, had greeted him with hearty applause and loud cheers as he took the stage, shifts about uncomfortably and nervously in their chairs, he proceeds to tell them there is no reasonable or guiltless escape from their purloining status, while, at the same time, upping, significantly, the unsettling ante:

We read [in our newspapers daily] of the crimes of a Borgia [a 15th century Italian family which would stop at nothing to gain their own selfish ends]…but there never lived Borgias such as those who live now in the midst of us. We, in no storm of passion–in no blindness of wealth – we, in calm and clear and untempted selfishness, pour our poison out–not for a few only, but for multitudes— not on those who have wronged or resisted us, but on those who have trusted and aided us; We, not with sudden gift of merciful and unconscious death– but with slow waste of hunger and weary rack of despair–and lastly and chiefly–not with any pause of pity or searching of conscience but in facile and forgetful calm of mind, do our murdering– and so…[we read] day by day–complacently–as if the stories meant anyone other than ourselves!– the words that forever describe the wicked: “The poison of asps is under their lips, and their feet are swift to shed blood.” (Romans 3:13, 15),,,

But, however this may be…you may be assured that the question is one of responsibilities…not of facts. For the definite result of our desire to be rich is assuredly, and constantly, the murder of a certain number of persons by our hands every year! I have not time to go into the details of… the most terrible way in which we create the destruction of the poor – namely, the way of luxury and waste–by indulgence and improvidence in what might have been the support of thousands– but, if you follow up the subject for yourselves at home – and what I have endeavored to lay before you tonight will only be useful if you do– you will find that what whenever men endeavor to make money hastily and avoid the labor which Providence has appointed to be the only source of honorable profit–and also, wherever and whenever they permit themselves to spend that money luxuriously without reflecting how far they are misguiding the labor of others – in either case, they are literally and infallibly causing–for their own benefit and their own pleasure–a certain number of human deaths; and the choice given to every man born to this world is, simply, whether he will be a laborer or an assassin. And that whosoever has not his hand on the stilt of the Plow, has it on the hilt of the Dagger.

Hardly comforting words, but, to this point in his life, some of the most sincere and truthful the speaker has ever placed before his public. Indeed, Ruskin was so convinced of the correctness of his analysis concerning these matters of calculated thievery and avoidable death) that, in the soon-to-be published version of this night’s lecture, he inserts the following note: “The analysis of the truth of this matter will be found completely carried out in my lectures on the political economy of art [1857: easily available on the web]. And it is a fact worth analyzing. For, until it is finally trodden under foot, no healthy economical, economical. or moral action is possible in any state. I do not say this impetuously or suddenly, for I have investigated the subject as deeply, and as long, as my own special subject of art. And the principles of political economy which I have stated in these lectures are as sure as the principles of Euclid.”

And yet, to this day, most of us are loath to accept the validity of his analysis. Yes, we are willing to admit, things are terrible in many places and the plight of the poor everywhere is painful to witness, but we, personally, have nothing to do with such suffering! Such a position was the one most commonly taken by my [generally affluent] students when I was teaching full-time and requiting them to read some of Ruskin’s accusatory essays. “WE are not thieves and we are as far from being murderers as can be imagined!” they would say, almost to a person: This that Ruskin says all very disturbing and heart-trending, and those who are responsible for all this suffering must bear the blame and responsibility for it, but we are not those people!” In which context, let me comment a little further on these accusations of Ruskin’s to demonstrate why, like those surprised and discomfited in his audience that evening (and on other evenings when he delivered similar lectures with similarly socially conscious themes), we are indeed the people he is speaking about, the people our parents warned us against! (This last phrase being the title of Nicholas von Hoffman’s book assessing the dubious outcome of the “society-saving” movements of the 1960s.)

First, Assume, as is the “real world” case, that, at any given time, there is a finite amount of money in circulation. Assume further that a certain (fairly small) amount of that money is needed by each person if he or she is to live a healthy and decent life. Assume still further that, if (as is also the real world case) that some of us, say a paltry 1%, gain control of a large percentage–(say 80%)–of these available monies in the course of conducting our daily affairs, either by honest dealing, cornering a market and therefore monopolizing a product others covet (oil–or perhaps–the services of a talented baseball or football player), or by, as our lecturer suggests, BY by stealing a certain amount of money from those weaker than ourselves. This means that, if we happen to be among the 1% who control 80% of the available means of sustenance, the remaining 99% of the population, must make do with whatever portion they can secure from the now considerably smaller pool of available money (20%). Which means, by extension, that, somewhere, someone (or “someones”) is (are) getting less than sufficient share of the money they require to live healthy and decent lives, and means, by further extension, that some in the population will be getting an insufficient amounts of money to support their lives. Which, in less happy turn, means that these deprived are less likely than their deeper-pocketed fellows to have sufficient resources to pay rents, buy food, or get adequate medical care, a situation which means that they are condemned to live lives of suffering as a matter of course, and are more likely to die at earlier ages and be more uncomfortable in these passings than will be the days and exits of the more privileged and powerful. All of which means–and this is a central Ruskinian tenet–that those few who control the bulk of the available money in circulation are, at any time, whether they like it or not (few do like it), or are aware of this inconvenient truth or not, are responsible for the suffering of the less fortunate, their hands being, even if they don’t realize it and reject out of hand any suggestion that it is the fact, not on the stilt of the life-giving Plow, but, instead on the hilt of the death-dealing Dagger. Murderers.

Second: consider his argument concerning the harmful effects of “luxurious” purchasing and living. So seduced are we by the plausible implausibility which, incessantly, cajoles us into believing that, if only we have more financial wherewithal than we need to live decently, we will be able to purchase more of the expensive goods which, we believe will make us happier; our first impulse is not to allocate our surplus in alleviating the plights of those poorer than ourselves, but, rather, to acquiring something which, in essence, we do not need, some thing which will sate (somewhat) our sense of “entitlement,” some thing which will (hopefully) make us the envy of our friends and associates, or, at the very least, salve our egos by making us feel we are “successful” in the judgmental eyes of the world. In other words, assuming that we have a perfectly serviceable automobile, boat, or house, we imagine we will be much more joyous if we possess a much more expensive automobile, refrigerator, or house. Hence, our covetous eyes turn to Ferraris, yachts, and mansions.

Now, take a moment to consider the implications of such indulgences. Perhaps first and foremost, any reflection (a reflection seldom undertaken) should take into account the fact that we are already in possession of items which adequately perform the services in question (we already own cars which transport us perfectly well, boats which allow us some relaxation in finer weather, and houses or apartments which keep us warm, safe, and out of the weather). To put it somewhat differently, the addition of luxuries are not likely to transform our lives for the better. However, if we purchase such luxuries, while they may in fact make us “happier” for a while, in almost all instances, before much time passes, long experience teaches, this “added pleasure” dwindles or lessens and we are little better off, if indeed we ever were better off at all, than before. In other words, Ruskin would say, luxuries add little to the quality of our lives and hence they and our desire for them are patently wastes of both time and money.. Finally, we must also consider that luxuries, while they do put someone to work in their creation, they also put these (usually unknown) others to work producing items which are not beneficial to life generally, set them to practicing employments which are inimical to life, unnecessary embellishments, unjustifiable wastes of time, imagination, and money, The essential message was and remains, simple: if we do not truly need such things, why spend our resources procuring them? Would it not be better to allocate the money we expend in the creation and consumption of them in alleviating the very real suffering of very real others?

Until next time, do please continue well out there!

Happy, hopefully simple, holidays!

Jim