Reading Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments 3

Prosperity and Judgment, or, Why do people look up to the rich?

I am reading Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), which you can read here: My first posts are here, here and here.

Smith wants to know how the moral standards by which people live came to be, and he wants to get there not by abstract thought, but by observing what people are like. We are not born with an ingrained moral philosophy, but we are born with sympathy for people, their good fortune and bad, and our degree of sympathy differs according to the specific circumstances. By reflecting on when it is that we feel sympathy we recognize that others will see us with similar sympathies, and so we adjust our own behavior in light of how we think we appear, how we wish to be seen. People might imagine an impartial spectator watching them, judging them.

Section 3 has the long title “Of the Effects of Prosperity and Adversity upon the Judgment of Mankind with Regard to the Propriety of Action; and Why it is More Easy to Obtain Their Approbation in One State than in the Other.” And he starts by asking: why do people want to be rich?

This might seem a strange question for the author (seventeen years later) of The Wealth of Nations: isn’t it obvious that we like to have nice things that make our life easier and more pleasant? But he believes something that most modern research on happiness has found: that once a person gets away from poverty and precarity, and is secure in where they and their family live and where the next meal is coming from, extra wealth does not get them very much in terms of utility. So why do people put so much effort into becoming rich? Vanity:

It is chiefly from this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty. For to what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? what is the end of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power, and pre-eminence? Is it to supply the necessities of nature? The wages of the meanest labourer can supply them. We see that they afford him food and clothing, the comfort of a house, and of a family. If we examine his economy with rigour, we should find that he spends a great part of them upon conveniences, which may be regarded as superfluities, and that, upon extraordinary occasions, he can give something even to vanity and distinction. What then is the cause of our aversion to his situation, and why should those who have been educated in the higher ranks of life, regard it as worse than death, to be reduced to live, even without labour, upon the same simple fare with him, to dwell under the same lowly roof, and to be clothed in the same humble attire? Do they imagine that their stomach is better, or their sleep sounder, in a palace than in a cottage? The contrary has been so often observed, and, indeed, is so very obvious, though it had never been observed, that there is nobody ignorant of it. From whence, then, arises that emulation which runs through all the different ranks of men, and what are the advantages which we propose by that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition? To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. It is the vanity, not the ease, or the pleasure, which interests us. …

“Love,” says my Lord Rochefoucault, “is commonly succeeded by ambition, but ambition is hardly ever succeeded by love.” That passion, when once it has got entire possession of the breast, will admit neither a rival nor a successor. To those who have been accustomed to the possession, or even to the hope, of public admiration, all other pleasures sicken and decay. Of all the discarded statesmen who, for their own ease, have studied to get the better of ambition, and to despise those honours which they could no longer arrive at, how few have been able to succeed? The greater part have spent their time in the most listless and insipid indolence, chagrined at the thoughts of their own insignificancy, incapable of being interested in the occupations of private life, without enjoyment, except when they talked of their former greatness, and without satisfaction, except when they were employed in some vain project to recover it. Are you in earnest resolved never to barter your liberty for the lordly servitude of a court, but to live free, fearless, and independent? There seems to be one way to continue in that virtuous resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place from whence so few have been able to return; never come within the circle of ambition; nor ever bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind before you.

Consider the photo above, of Donald, Melania, and Barron Trump, taken in 2010. What does Trump want from this portrait? He had not yet formally entered politics, although he had achieved celebrity status beyond New York City with the television program The Apprentice, in which he played the role of a very successful businessman.

What he wants our notice, and our admiration. He wants us to imagine what it would be like to be him. His life is not shown necessarily as one of comfort - I would rather relax in my own homely living room than in the space shown in his penthouse (when people sit on our couches they don’t have to yell across the room to hold a conversation). He just wants us to admire him for his wealth, his gold, his wife (many people have beautiful wives, whether rich, middle class, or poor, but he wanted a wife of a certain type of beauty and attitude, one who presents that she would only tolerate being married to an extremely wealthy man). His son looks rather miserable here, with a lion that can’t be all that much fun, and toy stretch limos (really? can they even fit on a Hot Wheels track?) placed there by the photographer - he hasn’t reached an age where public opinion is going to be all that worth pursuing.

And Trump, though, respectfully, an idiot in almost all other matters, does have a sense that there are many people who will buy in to this. We are happier sympathizing with the rich than the poor, it is simply easier to do, and so he is happy to serve it up - it is a mutually beneficial relationship between him and those who want to gaze upon the lives of the rich.

Smith does not think we should idolize those who have attained great riches - he calls this a corruption of our moral sentiments.

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.

How much has changed since 1759? People are drawn to admiring, sympathizing with the rich as much as ever, though in popular entertainment it is now compulsory that however much fun their dances appear to be, there is turmoil beneath the surface, and a virtuous and wise character is always inserted in the proceedings to remind us.

We desire both to be respectable and to be respected. We dread both to be contemptible and to be contemned. But, upon coming into the world, we soon find that wisdom and virtue are by no means the sole objects of respect; nor vice and folly, of contempt. We frequently see the respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous. We see frequently the vices and follies of the powerful much less despised than the poverty and weakness of the innocent. To deserve, to acquire, and to enjoy, the respect and admiration of mankind, are the great objects of ambition and emulation. Two different roads are presented to us, equally leading to the attainment of this so much desired object; the one, by the study of wisdom and the practice of virtue; the other, by the acquisition of wealth and greatness. Two different characters are presented to our emulation; the one of proud ambition and ostentatious avidity; the other, of humble modesty and equitable justice. Two different models, two different pictures, are held out to us, according to which we may fashion our own character and behaviour; the one more gaudy and glittering in its colouring; the other more correct and more exquisitely beautiful in its outline; the one forcing itself upon the notice of every wandering eye; the other attracting the attention of scarce any body but the most studious and careful observer. They are the wise and the virtuous chiefly, a select, though, I am afraid, but a small party, who are the real and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue. The great mob of mankind are the admirers and worshippers, and, what may seem more extraordinary, most frequently the disinterested admirers and worshippers, of wealth and greatness.