Some famous quotes are right on the mark, I think. And others are absolute bunk. I wade through a fair amount of these quotes on a daily basis in writing this blog.
This morning, one popped in on a newsletter. It comes from John Locke, who once said, “All wealth is the product of labor.” I immediately bucked.
I should say here that John Locke was an English philosopher and physician. He had quite a reputation as a thinker and was widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers of all time. He is commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism.”
This was a long time ago. He was born on August 29, 1632, in Wrington, United Kingdom. And he stayed around for 72 years, dying on October 28, 1704.
Anyway, his quote initially rubbed me the wrong way.
“All wealth is the product of labor.”
I thought of the many billionaires in the world who have acquired their fortunes from the heavy burdens of their underpaid workers.
And then it hit me. The quote is right. That wealth is the product of labor. Their labor.
This started with humankind early on. I’m not sure how one person could feel so entitled and sanctioned as to assert himself over another. But this was the way from long ago.
Slavery operated in the first civilizations in our world, such as Mesopotamia, which dates back to 3500 BC. There was a Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1860 BCE), which refers to slavery as an established institution.
I always think of the slaves building the pyramids or the ones in the Charleston Heston movie, The Ten Commandments. Slavery was widespread then. It most certainly can be found, historically, in almost every other ancient civilization, such as the Roman Empire.
They say it became less common throughout Europe during the Early Middle Ages. But the whole class system there, with the peasants working and paying the very wealthy Kings, was not far from slavery if you ask me.
Regardless. The wealth of the wealthy comes from the labor of others, no doubt.
Slavery, today, is not legal anywhere in the world. Today, we call it human trafficking, where an estimated 35-40 million people are currently enslaved. Worldwide.
Other times, great wealth has justifiable titles in our society.
The Church of the Latter-Day Saints is the wealthiest religious organization worth $200 billion. It is followed by the Catholic Church in Germany with $26 billion, the Catholic Church of Australia at $20 billion, and The Church of England with $12 billion.
But wait. Harvard University has a worth of $37 billion, followed by Yale with $26 billion, and a myriad of other institutions of education.
And then of course we have the list of companies with market capitalization values listed in the billions.
Apple Inc. — $2,450 B
Microsoft Corp — $2,160 B
Saudi Aramco — $1,861 B
Amazon — $1,830 B
Alphabet Inc. — $1,750 B
That’s a lot of billions.
In America, it is “The American Way” or “The American Dream.” The rags to riches story. The guy who twisted two rubber bands together around the end of a pencil and made millions.
Funny, on this date, August 8, 1911, the one-millionth patent was filed in the United States Patent Office by Francis Holton for a tubeless vehicle tire.
And so it goes. In 2019, there were about 3.13 million patents in force in the United States. The numbers have increased yearly since 1790. Then, there were three patents awarded. In 2020, there were 352,066 patents given.
So. The world had been focused on acquiring wealth for a long, long time. Let’s say 25, maybe 30 centuries.
But we humans showed up approximately 300,000 years ago. Perhaps, for a time, we were focused on being human.
Maybe, there’s hope.
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“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
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“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
― Epictetus
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“The Seven Social Sins are:
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.”
From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925.
― Frederick Lewis Donaldson
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Money makes the world go around. The world go around.
