Wealth
“The Blueprint of the Good Life”
A cooperative text by Martin Münnich, Michael Hampe, Tina Hilgarth & Francesco D’Amico
Everyone has problems. Life was once described (by Karl Popper) as a problem-solving process. The car breaks down, the computer crashes, you break your leg. Then a mechanic, an IT specialist or a doctor has to come and help.
But not all problems in life are of this nature. If you feel alienated, if your partner leaves you, a family breaks up, if you get a terminal illness, there is no trick to fixing the problem, even though many of us might think there is. Such existential problems are not technical, even if they have their patterns, some of them can perhaps be covered up for a while with psychotropic drugs or alcohol.
Existential problems are not problems in life, but they question life as a whole: Why do I live at all? What do I live for? How have I spent my life?
Wealth can also become an existential problem. It can determine your whole life. It can open up many opportunities. But it can also be a burden because it has to be managed, multiplied and passed on. It can constrict life by absorbing all attention.
Unlike problems in life, where specialists can help, overcoming existential life problems requires what is traditionally called ‘wisdom’: embodied in a friend who knows you, a person with life experience who carefully makes it clear when there are no more tricks left.
However, the tricks, the techniques, can be replaced by the treasure trove of stories, parables and myths that have been collected and handed down on all over the world and are full of wisdom if you know how to read them. They cannot replace an experienced friend. But perhaps they can give you self-distance to realize that you need such a friend.
Situating Wealth
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”[1]
This is the opening line of Anna Karenina, the famous novel by Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy was an important writer, someone who thought intensely about the meaning of his own life and life in general. Indeed, he distanced himself from his bestselling novels and became an advocate for the value of the simple life of the “common folk”, after living the life of a rich high performer and bon vivant. Yet this should not stop us from asking the simple question of how much importance we should give to the opening line of Anna Karenina. Does it reflect a universal truth? If so, does it only apply to families or also to individuals or perhaps entire societies?
When we are happy, are we happy in more or less the same way as everyone else, or is everyone unhappy in their own way? Are we not all individuals in the way we set our goals, choose our careers and leisure activities, shape our lives?
Research has identified criteria for happiness or satisfaction with one’s own life; in addition to security and stable social relationships, ‘prosperity’ is repeatedly mentioned.
Prosperity is a complex concept carrying great significance for our societies and individual ways of living. In societies of the so-called ‘West’, ideas of what a person is, what defines them and how they develop also play an important role. A good, successful way of living is often closely associated with the best possible development of personal opportunities, talents and skills. An unsuccessful life, on the other hand, is associated with a waste of opportunities.
Prosperity seems to be a guiding principle when recommendations are given on how to lead a successful life; both in the personal and social sense. There seems to be a common conception that prosperous societies and prosperous people are simply happier. According to the cliché, anyone who has become wealthy has “made it” and must be happy. Such a person is free from all of life’s problems: they can live wherever they want, they can afford the most expensive doctors if they fall ill, friends swarm around them at the lavish parties they host… What else should wealthy or rich people worry about, apart from managing their wealth?
It is an illusion that money – the things we buy with it and the influence we can exert thanks to it – alone makes us happy. Wealth can eliminate certain factors that promote unhappiness and promote a better life, but it is no guarantee for a good life or fulfillment of one’s talents or possibilities.
Wealth is immensely influential to the way we live our lives, and it brings a set of problems with it. The equation of wealth and happiness must be questioned, if only because human life is a process that does not simply end in a permanent state of happiness as soon as there is abundant money, influence, power and possession. It seems that when we tell each other about such supposedly permanent states and strive for them, we are fooling ourselves to the misfortune of us all, whether we are already wealthy or still striving for prosperity.
Of course, it is not only in Western societies that prosperity means an increase in opportunities to exert influence, an increase in choices that enable people to shape their own lives and those of others. It is therefore important to know what influence prosperity can have on people’s personal development and, retrospectively, on the society in which they live.
So, what could be a wise way of dealing with one’s own wealth? What specific forms of unhappiness might accompany it?
[1] Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina. Quoted from the open source: https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1399/pg1399-images.html Last accessed on October 01. 2024.
Vanitas mundi
Nothing is eternal, no ore, no marble”, according to the Baroque poet Andreas Gryphius.[1] Fame, deeds and their consequences all pass at some point. However, there is danger involved in trying to perpetuate conditions, supposedly immortalizing them, and we may not notice this at first. We deny the inevitable change in circumstances. We ignore the possible loss and then, when it actually occurs, we do not want to acknowledge it, cannot bear it, judge it as an extraordinary, perhaps even unjust misfortune. This always happens when we identify completely with what we have lost. In Buddhism, this is referred to as “attachment”. Attachment can relate to things, concepts, thoughts, intentions, feelings, our own physical form, our own beliefs and much more. It has been recognized as one of the main causes of unhappiness, of unsuccessful living.
It is not always easy to say what this means exactly, where attachment to transient things begins and where it ends. In the West, Goethe’s Faust is a literary character who portrays this attachment particularly well. In both the first and the second part of this story, Faust appears to be constantly driven. Whatever he touches, he wants to grasp completely: he wants to find and hold on to its innermost and supposedly eternal essence, the imperishable in all that is transient. Faust always believes he is committed to “the highest existence”, but he is repeatedly disappointed. Nothing, neither the study of science, nor religion or philosophy can quench his thirst for knowledge and the meaning of life. He has made a career through academic titles and honors and has become a highly educated man. But has he also gained wisdom along the way? His despair at his bleak state indicates the opposite: “All in vain! All wasted time!” He might as well flee the “living dead” and poison himself.
Tolstoy and Ludwig Wittgenstein also reached such moments of wishing for death. Neither Faust, Tolstoy nor Wittgenstein acted upon this wish. From a Buddhist point of view, a good decision. For the frustration that arises when one feels that one is not leading the life one wishes to, because certain things have not yet been acquired, certain dreams have not yet been fulfilled – whether the goals are concrete or abstract, or even include envisioning one’s death – is based on the illusion that there is something like an autonomous subjectivity that can shape life entirely on its own if it only has enough power and knowledge at its disposal. In this sense, suicide is also an attempt to be autonomous: I decide when life is over! I have the power to end it. But do I really end it as an autonomous being or am “I” overwhelmed by my despair? Those who kill themselves may end their suffering, but they also end themselves. He has not become free of suffering, but no longer exists at all. Unless they hope for a life in paradise after death.
Every person is closely connected to their environment. If you die or kill yourself, your suffering may disappear, but new suffering arises for your loved ones if you simply remove yourself from the network in which you co-existed. Many people may believe that life is centered around themselves, their wishes and needs, regardless of the rest of the world. They chase after the fulfillment of these wishes without paying attention to the manifold networks in which they, with all their wishes and ideas, are always involved and forget the almost infinite number of consequences that the fulfillment of their wishes can have, especially if they are a powerful and wealthy person who can fulfill a great many wishes. Faust doesn’t see these interdependencies either, or he doesn’t want to see them. Otherwise, he would probably act far more cautiously. Instead, he allows himself to be artificially rejuvenated and pushes Gretchen (who loves him dearly), her child, her brother and her mother over the edge. He does not want to acknowledge the consequences of his actions; he represses them and blames his companion Mephistopheles instead.
The second part of the tragedy begins with a generous or perhaps even forced forgetting. Faust can start all over again but is also deprived of the opportunity to accept his behavior and to change himself. As with his rejuvenation, Faust is, so to speak, only “reset to factory condition”, rebooted, and then, blind with zeal as before, strives again and again for the supposedly greatest achievements, be it in his work as an imperial advisor or as regent of an empire. Each time, he unleashes a wave of chaos, violence and destruction as he tries to achieve his goals as quickly as possible.
At the beginning of the tragedy, Faust confronted Mephistopheles’ temptations as a self-confident cynic. He believed that earthly temptations could no longer tempt him. He believed that he could no longer lose himself in them because he had seen through their illusory character. Faust is mistaken. In both parts of the story, he becomes entangled again and again without ever recognizing his “relapses” into attachment to illusions. He seems to achieve everything he sets out to do, becomes wealthy and powerful. But he cannot get rid of his worries. He cannot enter into a serene relationship with them, as Wittgenstein once described:
“Troubles are like illnesses; you have to accept them: the worst thing you can do is rebel against them. You get attacks of them too, triggered off by internal or external causes. And then you just have to tell yourself: “Another attack”.”[2]
[1] Translation of the German original (accessible via open source: https://gedichte.xbib.de/Gryphius%2C+Andreas_gedicht_08.+Es+ist+alles+eitell.html, last accessed: October 09, 2024, translation by Eliane Schmid.
[2] Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Culture and Value, ed. by G. H. von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell 1980 S. 79.
Wise Counseling?
Via the fictional character of Faust, Goethe showed that life’s worries cannot be completely eliminated through the force of wealth and influence. They can affect and paralyze anyone. This observation is supported by years of experience in counseling wealthy families and individuals. The observations from the sessions lead to the conclusion that the influence of a prosperous environment (this includes the acquisition, possession and prospect of prosperity) on the psychological balance of people and ultimately their personality development is profound. Generally speaking, wealth can help develop skills and talents and increase their effectiveness in the public sphere, but it also harbors massive potential for frustration. Both have an impact on the social behavior and inner happiness of wealthy people and – this is of particular interest – on how responsibly they behave in society.
If, like in Buddhism, you assume a high degree of interdependency between people and all other living beings and non-living processes, you quickly realize how difficult it is, on the one hand not to become controlled by prosperity, and, on the other, to deal wisely with prosperity and its interconnections. After all, the decisions I make as the head of a company, as an investor, or as the CEO of a business consortium never concern only me. To believe this would be to follow Faust’s treacherous path.
If we regard people as individuals with a unique life story, closely interwoven with myriads of other stories, then it is reasonable to assume that there can be no universal and meaningful advice when counseling wealthy individuals and families, no canon of general wisdom that every wealthy person could use for the successful use of their personal wealth in relation to themselves and their environment. Wisdom means above all: doing justice to a particular person in a particular situation. And if the misfortune of people differs in each case, including the misfortune of wealthy people, then wise advice must address each situation individually. Nevertheless, patterns can be worked out from experiences of counseling, which are interrelated to a certain extent. They show family resemblances regarding their problems and shed light on the specific worries that can arise in an environment of wealth.
Four Condensed Self-Portraits of Wealthy People
The Eternal Treasurer
I am over 80 years old but still extremely clear-headed and productive. I have devoted my entire life to managing the interests of my partner, who owns an industrial conglomerate for over 50 years. I have always worked meticulously and conscientiously in my fiduciary role, and I have not only managed, but also significantly optimized, what belonged to my responsibilities. The wealth of this conglomerate is the core of my existence. I focus all my talents and skills on tackling every problem that arises and on mastering every situation.
I think my children are incapable of learning from me and taking on my role in the future. I know all aspects and intricacies of our wealth in detail. I know what they should know and be able to do to replace me. But they are too weak, they are not committed and focused enough for this task because they always have some kind of reverie in their heads with all their strange values, like sustainability and equality. They are simply not in a position to make the right judgments that are needed in my position. So as long as I can, I will do this job!
What would I do if I could no longer pursue my vocation? It is my raison d’être! I’ve put all my energy into it and now I have to experience how people want to push me out of the role just because I’m old.
Paralyzed in Freedom
We are wealthy by all standards. My parents traveled by private plane. We own houses in many countries and have each of them managed by employees. I am now forty years old and have two siblings. Both have received their share of our family wealth and live with it in a manner befitting their status, so to speak. They spend a lot of money, and they invest to make their money grow. In short, they take what they have been given. But I don’t want this money because I know it’s bad. Or rather, it’s bad to cling to it. My family thoughtlessly makes fun of this attitude. They say I should just accept this wealth, which enables me to live a comfortable life and makes me a member of the upper class. But they don’t understand that I want to be myself! I want to shape my own life and not have it shaped by others. That’s why I set up my projects on my own without investing any money from my family. I know that I can do it on my own if I put in the effort! When I do something, I do it on my own! I don’t need my family’s money for that! The huge amount of money in the background would only unsettle me and make me constantly anxious. I still don’t have a permanent job in the true sense of the word. I haven’t decided on a path yet.
My Legacy
I am 50 and am probably one of the richest people in the country. My family enjoys a great reputation, both nationally and internationally. I am a good person! I am fair and generous. People with wealth and prestige should always set a good example and do good for the community. I want to make a difference in the world! That’s why I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to put something good into practice. However, I often find that the initial impetus is not enough. It doesn’t have the impact I imagined. How can one be a proper role model for people? It’s frustrating how long it takes to finally achieve even marginally desired results. How can I be perceived as a good example? What will people think of me in the future? Will I be remembered as just another wealthy snob and not as the person I really was?
In Praise of Leisure?
I am now 75 and I have created my own wealth! I would describe myself as very hard-working, clever, but also sensitive and human. I have great respect for capable and well-meaning people. However, I cannot accept laziness and a lack of passion. My wealth and my money give me pleasure. I like to support young talents, advise them and share my experience with them to help them progress. I also learn from them and am therefore involved in many projects with energetic entrepreneurs like myself. I work day and night with full commitment to make things happen and, above all, to support growth. If I were to lose contact with those talented people or lose passion and energy myself, I would be unhappy. Sure, I also have a family, and I love them. But family alone without commitment to getting something big off the ground and expanding it can’t be enough!
Decline of a Family
Wealth and prosperity are closely linked, not only to individual stories, but also to those of entire families. Money is not simply passed down through generations alongside the supposedly independent family history, which in turn does not develop on its own alongside the history of a city, a country, or a continent. Let us zoom in briefly on the history of a North German trading family, beginning with a man called Johann. He lived during the days of Goethe and was equally committed to classical education and business. At the time of the wars of liberation against the domination of Napoleonic France, he amassed the family’s fortune as a grain supplier to the Prussian army. Despite his business success, he felt it was wrong to devote his life solely to earning money. In the second generation, this “innate” attitude shifted. His son was characterized by a tense professional ethos. Did he lack the educated middle-class self-image that his father still exemplified?
One of his children became a figure who repeatedly failed tragically, trying his hand at business start-ups here and there, but all without success. He could not identify with his grandfather’s bourgeois ideals and was seen as a slacker. Alongside other children who are unable to carry on the family tradition, only one son managed not only to take over the inheritance, but also to carry it forward, thus raising the family’s fortune and reputation to new heights. Even more than his father, however, he was described as someone who had to force himself into this position using all his strength. He was therefore often described as an “actor” who had to play an unwanted and unwelcome role. It is therefore not surprising that he failed in modernizing the company and adapting to capitalist business practices. He speculated and thus initiated the decline of the family fortune. In reports about him, it is said that he had to painfully recognize his alienation from his own way of life through ecstatic reading of philosophy. After him, the decline of his monetary and spiritual inheritance continued throughout the family. His son Hanno was ignorant to both business and upper middle-class life. He found school a tormenting constraint. He took refuge in music and playing the piano but was never able to rise above the level of a dilettante and died early of typhoid fever. The family itself died out. All their wealth, which can be traced back to the “founder of the fortune”, was scattered around the world or bought up by business rivals.
From one perspective, this is a tragic story of decay. It is largely based on the family history of a writer who turned the story into a book and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for it. From another perspective, the story is something of a prequel to the novelist Thomas Mann. His brother Heinrich, also a great writer, once summarized in an exaggerated manner, the transformation that book brought to the brother: Thomas never had to suffer in life again after Buddenbrooks.
I did it my way
Countless war returnees have not been able to find their way back into civilian life. For them, the war experience is not simply an “exhausting excursion” from which they return to normal life and simply pick up where they left off.
For a young primary school teacher in Neunkirchen, Lower Austria, volunteering to join the military and take part in a conflict that would later be known as the First World War was an attempt to change his life for the better. He wanted to make the greatest possible effort to come as close as possible to death in order to learn something about life, to find the meaning of life. Years after the end of the war, he was still seen walking around in uniform and was therefore considered an oddball in the small community.
His family also viewed his transformation with concern. Had he not shown above-average performance in his engineering studies before the war? Had not one of England’s most prominent logicians of those years told his sister that he was expected to take the next big steps in his field? Surely, anyone understood that he needed some time off after the hardships of war and captivity. It would not have been a financial burden on his family. His father was a prime example of the rise from rags to riches. And because his father had invested wisely and in good time in American bonds after becoming a steel magnate, his son would not only have been the richest elementary school teacher in Austria, but one of the richest men in Europe, while millions of other people were still suffering from the consequences of the war for years to come.
His family was appalled by his post-war choice of profession; especially when he gave away his entire inheritance, committing “financial suicide” as his notary is said to have lamented. He probably drove the notary to despair with his wish that it should be completely impossible for even the smallest sum to still belong to him. Could he not have kept some of the assets as security? That does not seem to have been an option. Even in later times of financial hardship, it never occurred to him to ask for help from his siblings, to whom he had transferred his inheritance. But why had he taken on the burden of such a life? Actually, you don’t have to look at it that way. In his eyes, he had freed himself from at least one burden. He had handed over his wealth and the associated networks to others. It was also important to him later on not to be associated with the family’s wealth. He pretended to be a distant relative.
In this way, he was able to free himself from the pressure of inheritance and go his own way, or ways. For he did not remain a teacher for long. He was drawn back to the elite University of Cambridge in England, where he taught – reluctantly – and became one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Ludwig Wittgenstein died of a tumor at the age of 62 and told his friends that he had lived a wonderful life.
Two Further Testimonials
Lucky me!
I am 60 years old. I am an artist and collect contemporary art. I have a family, four children and a nice wife. My life is good! I love to paint portraits because I like to capture people’s feelings and emotions. I sell some of the pictures I paint in my studio. I also invest in other artists who I know well and who I believe will later be recognized as great artists.
I am undoubtedly rich. I come from an extremely wealthy family, and I am at peace with that. I would not have been able to develop as an artist without this background. In a way, I have invested my money in myself and my artistic development. In everyday life, I try not to spend my money excessively, but when I see good opportunities, I grab them or invest in other people. I lead a happy life and yes, I have also been lucky.
Moral Catalyst
I am now almost 80 and know my place in the world. I know what contribution I can make to society and will make for the rest of my life. Over the years, I have built up an industrial conglomerate and am now a wealthy and influential woman. I only inherited a small company, which at the time was supposed to go into the “capable” hands of a man. But it ended up in my hands, a nutritionist without any background in economics. Without any business management training, without any knowledge of the politics of the corporate world.
I use my assets, strengths and talents to make society fairer. This includes my commitment to gender parity. I see myself as responsible for my employees and the people in my social environment. What does that mean? I am accountable to my employees and have to look after them, their families and their future. This should be at the forefront of the efforts of people in management positions, not a love of money.
In a way, money is not important to me. But it serves me to create value, or to build, promote and protect economic, cultural and social values. Our society must constantly develop new rules of common economic activity and coexistence to become fairer and promote equality. I feel obliged to create the conditions for this development to the best of my ability. That is what drives me.
A Global Perspective
What do people expect from their governments? That is difficult to say in general terms and depends on each case individually. But is it presumptuous to assume that people expect those to whom they grant responsibility for their circumstances to act as wisely as possible? Do we not hope that our governments will act wisely? But what does that mean? Are governments wise or prudent when they try not only to maintain the standard of living of the people of their country, but to raise it? After all, one might think, a higher standard of living results in happier people. So, a wise government should strive to raise this standard as much as possible, especially through income. However, this is too simple a calculation. Income and life satisfaction are interrelated. The Zurich economist Bruno Frey has studied this and found that people whose income increases also state that they are generally more satisfied with their lives than before and in comparison to people with lower incomes. Contrary to initial intuition, this increase is not linear. People get used to the level of their standard of living after they have “risen” economically and then start to compare themselves competitively with people in the same income category. In the context of his research, Frey makes a very general statement about “people”:
“Looking upwards” motivates people to always want to achieve more. They are never satisfied with what they have achieved and always want more. This applies not only to material things (“money”), but also to many immaterial areas. Although an award or promotion temporarily increases life satisfaction, it also increases the expectation of achieving further awards or promotions. People strive for more. They are insatiable. The more he achieves, the more he wants.”[1]
Since World War Two, most countries around the world have established GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, as the key indicator of a society’s prosperity. It measures the market production of a country: the monetary value of all goods and services produced in an economy over the course of a year. If the figure falls, this is usually a bad thing. Governments therefore strive to make the figure rise. When our governments strive to increase the prosperity of their citizens or the gross domestic product, are they simply following the insatiable “greed” of “mankind” that Frey assumes? Can this really be described as clever or wise? Are governments blindly following the “unwisdom” of the ever-comparative and constantly striving-for-more individuals who they govern? GDP only appears a comprehensive measurement because this figure does not capture other important things that may also be part of the conditions or enablers of successful coexistence and a flourishing individual life, such as access to education, healthcare, the state of the environment or the sustainable use of resources. The question of the meaning and significance of GDP is therefore also a question about our own way of life or form of life, as it continually shapes the riverbed of our individual and collective development.
Karma Ura, the President of the Center for Bhutan Studies and Gross National Happiness Research, has therefore attempted to capture the factors on which the happiness of a country’s inhabitants depends in the so-called “Gross National Happiness Index” as an alternative to GDP. Income, for example, is only one of 177 factors now included. This alternative index includes variables such as social relationships, cultural connectedness, health, education, rights, freedoms and, for example, time as a meta-factor: time to be able to adequately dedicate oneself to the “components” of life that one deems important. Instead of a Faustian fixation on growth in the form of a constantly rising GDP, this index offers the leaders of a government the opportunity to align the fate of the state with the continuous improvement of the conditions for the happiness of individuals. In Buddhist Bhutan, the reduction of suffering as a guiding ideal is part of the practiced cultural heritage. In contrast to many Western ideas, happiness and personal development, cultivation of one’s own talents, etc. is not the sole responsibility of the individual, but has been elevated to the status of a “reason of state”. Karma Ura, who played a key role in this, emphasizes that it is not about dictating how people should live in order to be happy by decree. Instead, the population itself was asked about the relevant factors for life satisfaction to do some justice to the complexity of human life.
The idea that the successful development of myself, me as an individual person, is solely my concern is criticized in two ways. On the one hand, from a Buddhist perspective, the government is eschewing its responsibility to reduce suffering among the population. Secondly, this idea is based on the illusion that we can shape our lives entirely on our own, independently of all other people, animals, plants, etc. The greed for more/eternal growth and the disregarded interconnectivity (not alone) of human life are the stirrup holders of an idea of a successful life that exhausts itself in incessant private consumption.
[1] Frey, Bruno S.: Glück. Die Sicht der Ökonomie, Zürich: Rüegger 2010, S. 59, transl. by Eliane Schmid.
