The Moral Calculus of Wealth

Don't you love some of these clever phrases, you know, the ones that employ terms from science or maths to apply to human social behaviour and activities.

'The moral calculus...'

Calculus - many things, moving fast. 

So if you have a real lot of money, then you have lots of dollars, and oh sure, the demands on them will likely cause them to start to move very fast. Very fast, away! 

The moral calculus...

To the normal mind, if it witnesses some clear misfortune or tragic circumstance, would love to re-dress it in some way. And having a lot of money gives the individual the opportunity to be the agent of a change in affairs and in fortune.

In my own observation of what happened in my own life, I must say that apart from my own parents, there wasn't any obvious external sense being directed toward me about doing anything to help people in any altruistic way. Oh no; far from it. There was only this constant suggestion behind the lips of every adult, apparently, that they were all after material gain and career progress which was nothing more nor less than a fairly naked desire to have a lot of money.

Now that I am a lot older, things spring out at me that were of little concern within my consciousness when I was younger although I think I still held these beliefs or suspicions about a lot of other people: I think one of the reasons you will find quite a lot of people say 'I only want a million dollars, not tens or hundreds of millions - I just want to pay my mortgage, and have enough to live on..' - is because it releases them from the moral pressure that attends people with much much more than 'just' whatever.

You must have seen last week's news about those people who won the 300+ million US dollar lottery who told the media that they would use it mostly for philanthropy.

Well I mean to say, what option do they have? 'Oh, now that I have won 300 million I'm going to spend the rest of my life being mean and mean-spirited and lord it over all the poor unfortunates...!'

If you are a Muslim, it's a lot easier - women rank with donkeys and dogs; so you don't have to spend much time in consideration of them. Especially if you don't care much for dogs and donkeys.

Not only that, Allah rewards whomsoever He pleases and not people who are morally entitled to anything, nor those who earn it. Allah is oft Merciful; though clearly not always, nor according to any particular objective standard that we can use as a template. He just does whatever He whimsically decides. 'Oft.' It means, sometimes, many times, but not BECAUSE OF anything. Just 'oft.' You see - this is calculus.

In order to make some sense of large, whimsical number, we try to see things through the filter of a calculus, or formula.

Christianity - at least modern Christianity - lacks the dimension of a wealth calculus. There isn't a lot of methodology about when you attain to material wealth in this life. It's not that it isn't there inside the foundation texts, it's just that the elements are underplayed because of politics between the nascent religion and the establishment of Rome. Rome had 'Jupiter' or 'Jove' - the divine force of generosity and material wealth. But so did or does ancient Christianity...

Modern pop atheists like to talk about the conflating of Roman pagan gods with aspects of divinity implicit in Christianity. But that isn't correct. In point of written down fact, Jesus Christ specifically claimed that his father was God of Heaven - but in the Gospel Greek these actual words are 'Ouranos;' Anu from the Expanse Above.

Annunaki is literally present inside the Christian texts. It's in the Old Testament, it's in the Gospels. 'Those who descended down from An.' Or from 'Anu.'

King Midas, the Greek mythical king who possessed that 'magical touch,' faced this moral calculus. All wealthy people do. Everything you touch from your wealth becomes golden, and it is shiny and bright, but is it warm and alive, intelligent and conscious as well?

Capitalism is a modern political theory, in reality, which seeks to resolve this question by making a positive human ethic come from out of an objective, cold, impersonal truth: which is, namely, that apparently money does not care. But in the hands of political capitalism, money allows society to progress.

Which it never does, of course.