In my last post, I tried to move the current argument about taxing the wealthy away from economics into the realm of ethics. I argued that wealth presents both a moral and practical problem for societies, citing Aristotle’s Politics, where the philosopher notes the perpetual tension between the rich and the poor. But wealth also presents a moral and practical problem for wealthy individuals. In his Ethics, the philosopher, in exploring the subject of human happiness, discusses along the way the various ways in which wealthy people handle their wealth—some with liberality, some without. He concludes that in most cases wealth fails to lead to happiness. Although remaining with Aristotle’s ideas is tempting, this is a blog, where a certain amount of free-associating enlivens things. So I’d like to turn now to Leonardo da Vinci’s less well-known yet equally insightful thoughts on wealth.
Neither Aristotle nor Leonardo were wealthy individuals, but each got to intimately observe wealthy people—Aristotle by living in the court of King Philip in Macedonia for three years, Leonardo by living in the court of Ludovico Sforza for 16. Leonardo famously scribbled thousands of words in his private notebooks, covering an enormous variety of topics ranging from linear perspective to painting, anatomy, botany, and war machines. (At one point he even jotted down the observation that “the sun does not move”—the kind of statement that, had it been made public, would have gotten him into deep trouble.)
As part of a planned treatise on painting that he never got around to writing, Leonardo wrote many instructions for painters, including practical advice about how to lead their lives. He urged them to avoid getting too wealthy, since their goal was to strive for “more honor than money would do, because money is celebrated only for its own sake and not for that of he who possesses it, who is like a magnet for envy.” Wealth would only corrupt them, destroying their ambition to make great works of art. Furthermore, “[m]oney earned in excess of our daily requirements is not worth much, and if you desire an abundance of wealth you will end up not using it … and whatever you earn that you do not need during your life is in the hands of others regardless of your intent.”
For reasons very similar to those offered by Aristotle, Leonardo saw virtue as the key to happiness. The “glory of the virtue of mortals is far greater than that of their treasures,” and Leonardo holds in contempt those who use wealth to satisfy the “yearning for gluttony and excess.” He notes that many philosophers have “given away their fortune so as not to be corrupted by it.” He chides painters for whining that they have to provide for their children, telling them “ a little will suffice for them: see to it that their sustenance be the virtues, which are the true riches, for they never leave us, departing only with life itself.”
I have no idea if either Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, the two greatest contemporary paradigms of what might be called the “philosophically wealthy,” ever read Aristotle or Leonardo. But in their current campaign to get the world’s wealthiest people (billionaires, not paltry millionaires) to give away at least half their fortunes, they seem as if they studied at their feet.