The Natural Regulator to Wealth Accumulation
Is there a limit to wealth accumulation?
Capitalist market forces tell us to accumulate as much as possible, as soon as possible. In principle, there’s no limit, but morally, accumulating seems to have a limit. Here is what Bill Gates says; yes the billionaire capitalist.
“I can understand about having millions of dollars. There’s meaningful freedom that comes with that, but once you get much beyond that I have to tell you, it’s the same hamburger.”
And here is what research says;
Several studies show that beyond a certain threshold of income — “the satiation point, people reported lower happiness and wellbeing because their motivation to earn more money was not by purpose and meaning but by comparison to others and a desire for material gains.”
What these two statements tell us is that beyond a certain limit wealth accumulation seizes to add meaningful value to the accumulator. Millionaires end up accumulating just for the sake of accumulating and the fame and glorification that comes with it.
So if there’s a moral limit, why isn’t there a limit to accumulation in practice? Any attempt to answer this requires revisiting the laws that sustain capitalism.
The private property laws on which capitalism stands today, build on property theories of John Locke — ‘the consummate father of liberalism.’
What’s consistent in Locke’s theory is the need to defuse the dilemma in the fact that everyone is allowed to use common resources for self-preservation yet to do so without excluding or harming others would require universal consent. In which case, as Locke argues, waiting for universal consent is waiting for universal starvation or deprivation — notwithstanding the abundance offered by nature.
So, mixing one’s labour with the commons substitutes for the need for universal consent.
John Locke says that when a person mixes his labour with a common resource, then he has effectively excluded the right of other commoners to the resource. To bring the point home, he gave the example of a commoner nourished by acorns. The act of picking acorns from a common oak tree or apples from the woods makes the acorns his own — no one can claim them. This goes for cultivating land — he owns previously unowned land after tilling or planting corn or building a house on it etc.
The chasm between private property and the commons presents two themes we can’t ignore in Locke’s theory; The first is;
Private property rights justify the need to uphold the individual’s right to self-preservation — at least in previous centuries when people individually went hunting, gathering, farming, fishing — they directly relied on earth for survival.
The second theme we can’t ignore — but have conveniently ignored is; the right to self-preservation to other commoners on earth.
Locke ends the most quoted paragraph justifying private property with “… as long as there is enough and as good left in common for others.”
While one’s labour excludes other commoners from a previously common resource, it doesn’t preclude their self-preservation.
In other paragraphs, Locke adds, “… The same law of nature, that does by this means give us [private] property, does also bound that [private] property too.” A deprived commoner has a right to the surplus of one’s wealth “ …so that it cannot justly be denied him when his pressing wants call for it; and, therefore, no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land or possessions,…”
To use Locke’s acorns example, if I pick acorns from an oak tree or apples from the woods, I can store some for myself only to the extent they won’t spoil away. The surplus is for the commons. Locke adds “ God has given us all things richly. But how far has he given it to us? To enjoy. As much as anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.”
‘ Before it spoils’ is the upper bound to accumulation. It is the natural regulator that maintains a balance between the individual’s self-preservation and that of the community. It constrains (with reason) private property rights to mutually respect the right of community, and surrender to commons what (share) belongs to commons.
It is unjust as much as it is unreasonable to let acorns or apples rot when others starve of their nourishment. So, community still has a share in the surplus (acorns) of private property.
The’ Before it Spoils’ regulator automatically routes the commons to community needs and private property to the individual needs.
‘Mixing labour’ with common resources justifies one’s right to self-preservation. The same way ‘ Before it Spoils’ justifies other commoners’ rights to self-preservation.
‘Mixing Labour’ includes one in common resources, the same way ‘before it spoils’ includes other commoners in private surplus.
‘Mixing labour with common resources excludes community. The same way ‘ Before it Spoils’ excludes private property from the surplus.
In fact, ‘Before it Spoils’ revokes private property rights to protect common rights.
‘Mixing your Labour’ gives you the acorns you need. ‘ Before it Spoils ‘ gives others the acorns they need.
‘Mixing your Labour’ gives you the resources you need. ‘ Before it Spoils ‘ gives others the resources they need.
‘Mixing your Labour’ gives you’re the money you need. ‘ Before it Spoils ‘ gives others the money they need.
Let’s represent the current state of this chasm between private and common; ‘ mixing labour’ and ‘ before it spoils’ in the picture of a lake with plenty (but finite) of fish. The lake provides fish for everyone in a community year-round. We all have equal rights over it. One picks as much fish as they need to use before it spoils. One day people come ready to pick fish and there is nothing in the lake but there’s a large stinking pile of spoilt fish on the shores. This is the absurd situation ‘ before it spoils’ seeks to naturally regulate. Deprived people, going hungry because a few picked more than they needed and it got spoilt.
Money Eliminates the Regulator
But with commerce, ‘ before it spoils’ is bypassed. I can pick as much as I can and sell it for money — which is fine because some people need fish but others would rather farm rice, others chilli, others would rather make clothes and so on — we now meet our basic needs through exchanging the products of our labour.
In fact, commerce reduces the chances of valuable natural resources going to waste — perhaps better than the ‘before it spoils’ condition. What commerce doesn’t do is what the ‘ before it spoils’ condition does; regulate reasonable equal access to resources — at least the basic ones. In fact, commerce uses private property rights to the effect of concentrating resources to a few at the expense of the many.
So, I have no money but I can fish, if the lake hasn’t been acquired by a billionaire ( they are buying full islands you know), there is a chance of finding no fish due to overfishing. This time I may not find piles of rotting fish on the shores, because someone has piles of money in the bank. Where is “enough and as good left in common for others”?
I have no money, there are chunks of idle land I could farm but I can’t — it’s already private property. Or it’s fenced off with extensive farms, or luxury apartments or other land-intensive projects. These are valuable projects but, where is “enough and as good left in common for others”?
I can pick my own salt, but salt mines are private. I can pick my sand to build my house but sand mines are bought off. Where is “enough and as good left in common for others”?
I need a breath of fresh air; air quality is low due to corporate pollution, I need an environment with fewer heatwaves, fewer tornadoes, fewer wildfires and deadly floods. Where is “enough and as good left in common for others”?
Commerce has done wonders, and so has money, but when the natural limit ( ‘before it spoils’ or ‘enough and as good left in common for others’) on private property rights is removed, even space is up for grabs and inequality, climate change and everything in that endless list of global problems becomes inevitable.
Where is “enough and as good left in common for others”?
It’s Locke who justified property rights so let’s go back to him.
Just to recap; Private property rights justify the need to uphold the individual’s right to self-preservation.
Fast forward to the modern world; where we are disconnected from the earth by a spiralling barricade of private profit. The major means of self-preservation is through private profit. Producing middlemenstand in between the person and earth — you no longer farm your own food or fetch your own water, or build your house, you no longer make your own bed, soon robots will be cleaning your nose for you.
By producing middlemen we mean corporations and businesses that do the hard work of extracting our material needs from the earth, using society generated knowledge and civilisation.
Producing middlemen shrink common resources into private property, then squeeze every last profit from private property. They rent private property for private profit. They extract earth to concentrate private profit. Wage labour is now the main means of self-preservation — we self-preserve by making a profit off others’ need to self-preserve themselves. Only a handful of people go directly to earth, and for a handful of basic needs.
Land, the primary resource for self-preservation is private, mines, islands, water bodies have been cordoned off, even resources we expect to be abundant like fresh air, oceans are corporate-branded with life-threatening pollutants, forests are encroached every day reducing the common benefit of a less warm world — all for a profit.
No doubt producing middlemen were necessary as population, specialization and the need for efficiency increased, but the blind focus on profit growth calls for a delineation of private profit from private property, or else we are headed for the universal starvation that private property sought to prevent — even worse the private-property principles that sought self-preservation might lead to universal self-destruction.
A focus on Selling adds the intent of wealth accumulation to that of self-preservation
Before the current stage of the profit growth system (pgs), a person expended energy (labour) to get the nourishing benefits of acorns or apples. We can represent that with the formula;
Labour = Benefit → Self-Preservation
Today a person (entrepreneur) picks acorns to get a profit after selling them at a price.
Selling Price — Labour = Benefit → Self-Preservation + Wealth Accumulation
Under the current profit growth system, people have transitioned their will, ambitions, courage, creativity, skills, knowledge and entire lives to selling something. When selling becomes the reason we expend our labour, when selling becomes the objective of living, extracting earth to maximise profit and wealth accumulation replaces self-preservation as the means to the purpose of life and quickly becomes the purpose of life. And when wealth accumulation is the purpose of life, limits are unbound, injustices normalized — it’s not sustainable.
The profit growth system injects instincts of wealth accumulation in all of us, even the poorest of us works for self-preservation but with the goal of wealth accumulation at the back of his mind. Innovation improves efficiency but also endlessly invents new desires — that we upgrade into rights to self-preservation — when they are actually wealth accumulants.
So, a few have a right to private jets and yachts while many are homeless, a few have a right to a fourth, tenth Cadillac, and monthly wardrobe change, while many go hungry, a few have a right to massive profits while others are displaced and die of global warming effects resulting from those profits — read ExxonMobil.
When private profits compete for endless desires, self-preservation seizes to be the objective — rather wealth accumulation and the pride and admiration it comes with become life’s purpose and earth and society become the docile slaves extracted to feed endless desires.
Private profit and accumulation are necessary but the sooner we recognize that limitless accumulation is a major problem on our hands, the sooner we can redesign it to prevent its increasingly destructive effects.
We run an economy where wealth concentration masquerades as scarcity. A few accumulate wealth, they acquire the capital, experience, knowledge and most of all the power to accumulate even more and more and billions of times more — before others are empowered.
Unlike private property as theorized in Locke’s days to uphold the right to self-preservation, today’s private profit is intended for limitless wealth accumulation.
This is the effect of the fact that commerce plucks the ( private/common) regulator out of the earth/individual/community love triangle and drowns it to the bottom of the sea.
Before the current profit growth system (pgs), the ‘before it spoils’ condition would limit labour and accumulation to self-preservation. Post pgs, money disables the regulator and everyone’s goal is wealth accumulation. It’s no longer accumulating ‘ perishable’ acorns but accumulating money.
If the surplus (acorns) that the individual would have surrendered to commons is instead sold for a profit — then commons is party to the profits.
This is where we find the ‘enough and as good left in common for others’ — in the profit of each sell.
The objection would be that regardless of the right to self-preservation granted by the ‘before it spoils’ regulator, commons or community didn’t invest any labour — how can it then have a claim on profits? A response would be, you picked ready grown acorns too. So, like private property, community’s share in the ‘acorns’ is granted by the fact that earth has a duty to sustain not just the individual but everyone on it. It’s not perfect but the ‘ before it spoils’ regulator guarantees earth’s duty to everyone in community reach.
No doubt commerce is a better option to identify and meet the basic needs of a growing population. No doubt one expends his labour, will, time, creativity and skill in running a successful business. But the fact that ‘ earth has a duty to all beings on it ‘ is always true. So, whether it is land, acorns, oil, software, comedy show, or other products and services we exchange for money today, there is always a component of the commons that goes into private property and thus goes into private profit.
The ‘Before it Spoils’ condition ensures that ‘enough and as good is left for others in common’ — it guarantees earth’s duty to other beings besides the individual.
So, in the current profit growth system, ‘ mixing labour with commons’ plus ‘ Before it Spoils’ gives us the general equation;
Private Input + Common Input = (Private) Profit for wealth accumulation
But, even if the intention is still self-preservation, not profit accumulation, ‘before it spoils’ — seen as earth’s duty to others (besides the individual) can be translated as a call to sharing profits. The new and fairer equation becomes;
Common Input + Private Input = Common Profit + Private Profit
This is also consistent with nature’s models — where many natural processes maintain a balance by combining inputs from different beings to create new value and then split the created benefits (profits) for all beings in the ecosystem to thrive. If the nimbus clouds for example set out on a mission to accumulate rains, the swelling clouds would cut off sunlight, cut off photosynthesis, cut off moisture in the soil, and cut off solar heating of seas to create water vapour and the entire rain cycle would disrupt not just the greedy cloud but life itself.
An impossible upper limit calls for Circular Commons.
The theories that define today’s capitalist private property also put an upper bound to how much wealth one can accumulate, yet this natural imperative of sustainability has been conveniently ignored by modern regulations that protect private property and profit.
An upper bound is known to be dangerous to neglect, yet it has been the hardest to implement. Partly because the ones we trust to implement it benefit from its absence directly or indirectly — (we elect leaders who haven’t exercised leadership over their souls) and partly because of how hard it would be to measure and keep track of wealth without infringing on privacy, not to mention the resistance arising from the fact that one still invests his labour even after any kind of set limit.
Even Locke placed the obligation of observing the wealth limit on the voluntary charity of the wealthy individual. But a complex combination of inefficiencies in our economic system makes it easy and rewarding to accumulate more and more, and easy to neglect pressing social and environmental issues that need finances.
However, the fact that it’s hard to set a limit on wealth accumulation doesn’t mean social finance should wait decades for businesses to make billionaires who may or may not honour the natural imperative that profits should be shared with commons.
In light of the increasingly catastrophic effects of neglecting social and environmental issues, a new model to separate community’s acorns from private acorns is overdue.
A model that rewards businesses that relinquish common profits with community support (purchases).
A model where commons doesn’t have to wait decades for profits to accumulate into billions of surpluses to receive its share of the profits as conditional donations.
A model where community receive its share of profit (acorns) at the same time, and at the same point businesses receive theirs. Right on each sale. Right at the counter.
It’s a mutual and efficient compromise; it respects the individual’s efforts and initiative, his right to private property and privacy while honouring the needs of the commons.
So, Instead of; ‘you mix your labour with common resources’ > you sell > you accumulate > you sell more > you accumulate, you sell > you accumulate in cycles, It becomes; ‘You mix your labour with common resources’ > you sell > commons gets its profit, you get your profit right at checkout.
Like circular ‘private profits’, like circular ‘commons profits’. These selfless exchanges will incentivise selfless markets, that nurture selfless people who care for and protect the health of earth and society. Reconnecting to earth and society reconnects people to their life purpose and nurtures happiness and wellbeing.
Originally published at https://www.selflessmarkets.com on August 28, 2021.
