George Orwell: Having wealth stinks

[bob boag]

For, when you are approaching poverty, you make one discovery which outweighs some of the others. You discover boredom and mean complications and the beginnings of hunger, but you also discover the great redeeming feature of poverty: the fact that it annihilates the future.

Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry. When you have a hundred francs in the world you are liable to the most craven panics. When you have only three francs you are quite indifferent; for three francs will feed you till tomorrow, and you cannot think further than that. You are bored, but you are not afraid. You think vaguely, 'I shall be starving in a day or two--shocking, isn't it?' And then the mind wanders to other topics. A bread and margarine diet does, to some extent, provide its own anodyne.

And there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. I believe everyone who has been hard up has experienced it. It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing ourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs--and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it.

Chapter 3 - Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell, Book, etext

 

[razztazz]

The folks with plenty o' Plenty got a lock on the door

Afraid somebody's a-goin' to rob 'em while they're out a-makin' more.. what for?

Now, I got no lock on the door that's the way to be.

Let 'em steal the rug from the floor that's OK with me

'Cause the things that I prize like the stars in the skies are all free!

Oh, I got plenty o' nuthin' and nuthin' plenty for me G Gershwin

 

[Lancelot]

So Mr. Orwell says...

I would roll more this way:

"I have never been in a situation where having money made it worse."

Clinton Jones

 

[Gumby]

"I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, Honey, rich is better."

--- Mae West

 

[RunningBum]

Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry.
Chapter 3 - Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell, Book, etext

That's funny. I've never claimed that money buys happiness, but I do believe that money reduces stress and worry. FI greatly reduces those.

I don't know if having a great excess over FI brings some stress and worry back. I'm willing to make a study of it if someone will back me.

 

[marko]

"...the less money you have, the less you worry" is this Orwell or an ad from the local welfare office?

 

[marko]

So Mr. Orwell says...

I would roll more this way:

"I have never been in a situation where having money made it worse."

Clinton Jones

+1 Awesome!

 

[PhrugalPhan]

"Freedom's just another word for nuthin' left to lose"

-- Me and Bobby McGee

 

[ERD50]

Makes for nice prose I guess, but I think the Mae West and Clinton Jones views in this thread are far more realistic than Orwell's or Gershwin's or Kris Kristofferson's (though I love their works).

If someone complains about having money, they have some real problems that have nothing to do with money. Now, I actually have thought that I might not want to be super-wealthy - I would not want my family to be ransom targets. But that is easily solved, just keep a low profile, and/or anonymously give enough away so you are just plain old rich, not super-wealthy. There is a point where it's just keeping score, Gates for example can't reasonably spend what he has, so sure, give it away - why not?

-ERD50

 

[razztazz]

There was a movie many years ago called "I'd Rather Be Rich". Andy Williams' foray into being a movie star. A movie title and a philosophy of life.

Overall I have little sympathy for rich people and their problems. They like to cry about how they're "just people like everybody else" and they have their problems and personal tragedies like regular people. I say BS. They want it both ways. Seen as hard working normal people but contemptuous victims of wealth envy by "The Others". Those who are not like Them as defined by Them. I know they wouldn't want to have the same personal tragedies but have them with no money. Or lose their money because of them.

Money=good. The only problems you can avoid by not having money are Ivan Boesky's and Martha Stewart's problems. If she had been chained to the machine subject to the whip and whim of economic fate I doubt she would have had the opportunity to lie to the FBI about her daughter's boyfriend's insider trading and do that jail thing

 

[Bestwifeever]

"I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, Honey, rich is better."

--- Mae West

"Five will get you ten if you know how to work it."

--Mae West, My Little Chickadee

 

[growing_older]

No sympathy here. I do know some very wealthy people (not me) and most are well adjusted and comfortable, and very much enjoy that they can afford whatever they want. There are a few among them who are constantly involved in ridiculous personal drama, are consumed with jealousy for those even more wealthy than they, or that have developed mean spirited approaches to whatever boards and causes they "support" and are constantly demanding ever greater accolades and acknowledgements, comparing themselves to their "rivals" in wealth. These people would probably have been miserable with or without money, but it doesn't seem to be the money that made them that way.

 

[Donzo]

I look at money the same way as the author of Your Money or Your Life. You give up your life energy to get it (in most cases). But, if you save and invest the money, it can buy your freedom.
I have an acquaintance that had a good paying job, He ended up on disability and is miserable. He has enough money for just the basics no play money like while he was working. He has time...but no $ - He would vote for money being a good thing to have in surplus.

 

[Surewhitey]

"I don't know what they want from me
It's like the more money we come across
The more problems we see"

B.I.G.

 

[Eagle43]

So Mr. Orwell says...

I would roll more this way:

"I have never been in a situation where having money made it worse."

Clinton Jones

+1
I grew up poor. It's no fun, and it's not noble. Now I (probably) have enough money to last the rest of my life and I love being independent. Money is good and not a reason to apologize.

 

[bld999]

I think I'll send my address to Orwell's estate, and anytime they have extra funds stuck in their craw, they know where to send them. Win-win.

 

[haha]

I think I'll send my address to Orwell's estate, and anytime they have extra funds stuck in their craw, they know where to send them. Win-win.

Orwell was a socialist, though Animal Farm seems to suggest that this was wearing thin for him. Down and Out in Paris and London is a very good autobiographical book taken from his early manhood. Who knows what he really thought about this, I suspect he was too intelligent to have an easily summarized outlook.

Ha

 

[2B]

"I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, Honey, rich is better."

--- Mae West

I certainly agree with her; and if I met her in her prime, it wouldn't be a gun in my pocket.

 

[2B]

+1
I grew up poor. It's no fun, and it's not noble. Now I (probably) have enough money to last the rest of my life and I love being independent. Money is good and not a reason to apologize.

+1