Why We Really Pursue Wealth...
According to Adam Smith.
“[I]t is chiefly from this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue
riches and avoid poverty.” – Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, I.iii.2.1.
Adam Smith makes the counterintuitive argument that we do not pursue wealth for what the wealth can literally afford us. Instead, Smith argues that the pursuit of wealth is animated almost entirely by the increased sympathy that its attainment elicits from our fellow man. Smith’s logic is that socioeconomic ascension is so difficult, and the utility derived from doing so is so marginal (or negative, at a certain extremity), that the motivation simply has to be outside of the improved basket of consumer goods and services that the richer person can afford.
From a purely economic perspective, Adam Smith’s argument is airtight; it’s predicated on the concept of diminishing marginal utility. That is, each additional dollar one earns is of less utility than the last. For example, Jeff Bezos’s 10 billionth dollar is much less valuable to him than the first dollar obtained by a panhandler. In acknowledging the diminishing marginal utility of wealth, Smith contends that “[i]t is the vanity, not the ease, or the pleasure, which… compensates all that toil, all that anxiety, all those mortifications which must be undergone in the pursuit of [wealth]” (I.iii.2.1).
The ambitious do not “imagine that their stomach is better, or their sleep sounder in a palace than in a cottage…” (I.iii.2.1). Nevertheless, many people labor tirelessly to rise above their station, into the highest socioeconomic ranks possible, at great personal cost. Why? Smith explains that they are more than renumerated for their exertion by the increased attention, adoration, sympathy, and fellow-feeling they receive from all about them. According to Smith, mankind feels “a peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of those who” appear to model “the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state” (I.iii.2.2). Smith believes this sympathy for the men of high rank is so strong that “we desire to serve them for their own sake, without any other recompense but the vanity or the honour of obliging them” (I.iii.2.3).
The man of rank is pleased not by his newfound station itself, nor by his expensive baubles and comforts not worth the personal cost to attain them. He is not even pleased by the sentiments of his new peers, “those who were born [his] superiors,” who hold him “first with contempt, and afterwards with envy” (I.iii.2.5). Instead, the man is pleased by rendering himself “the object of [the multitudes’] respect, their gratitude, their love, their admiration” (I.iii.2.6).
Adam Smith’s argument is demonstrably, observably true in present day America. Donald Trump is a fine case in point. The former president won the adoration and votes of a great multitude of people who cite his virtues less than his incredibly well-advertised wealth, station, and rank. Considering his infamous lack of propriety, so many people sympathize with him because of the imagined greatness and pleasure of his station rather than whatever wisdom and virtues, amiable or respectable, Donald Trump may (or may not) possess.