FG Jünger on Forms of Wealth and Technical Impoverishment

II - THE DELUSION OF WEALTH

Mostly deeply rooted of all the illusions which technical progress creates is probably that of the riches produced by it. At bottom, no one doubts that industry increases our riches, and that it does so all the more, the further industrialization is spread by technical progress. It appears that there are historical and economic situations encouraging such a conviction – there are periods of prosperity which seem to strengthen and support it, the most fruitful being those brought about by the head start in mechanization which a few European nations had secured. It was an advantage resulting from a position of monopoly which could not be maintained, which dwindled away as technical thinking spread around the earth. It would be as interesting to study the causes of these advantages created by technical progress, as it would be to determine the events which put an end to them. The common feature of every advantage of this sort is the exploitation of a propitious situation.

But what are riches? If we want to get to the bottom of the thing, this question must be asked. The notions on his point are full of confusion, owing to jumbled concepts. Riches, by definition, are either a being or a having. If I conceive of them as a being, it is obvious that I am rich not because I have much – rather, all having is dependent upon the riches of my nature. So conceived, riches are not something which alight upon man or fly away from him; they are an endowment of nature, subject to neither will nor effort. They are original wealth, an added measure of freedom which blossoms forth in certain human beings. For riches and freedom are inseparably joined together, so intimately that riches of any kind can be appraised by the measure of freedom they contain. Riches in this sense may even be identical with poverty; a rich being is consistent with a not-having, with a lack of material possessions. Homer means just this when he calls the beggar a king. Only such riches as are mine by nature can I fully command and enjoy. Where riches consist in having, the capacity for enjoying them does not  necessarily go with them. It may be lacking – a frequent case.

Where riches are one with rank, they also have that strength that is subject neither to change nor chance. They are as lasting and stable as are those treasures that cannot be spent nor consumed by time. But riches that are a mere having may be taken from me at any moment. Most men, it is true, believe that riches are created by one's enriching himself – a delusion they have in common with all the rabble on earth. Only poverty can enrich itself. Poverty, by analogy with riches, is either a not-being or a not-having. Where it is not-being, it cannot be conceived as identical with riches which are being. Where it is not-having, it may be identical with riches: when a material not-having coincides with a rich being.

In all Indo-Germanic languages, riches are conceived as a being. In German, "rich" (reich) and "realm" (Reich) are of the same root. For "rich" here means no less than mighty, noble, regal, as one finds it in the Latin regius. And Reich is the same as the Latin rex, and the Sanskrit rajan, meaning king. Thus, riches in the original meaning are nothing else than the ruling, regal power and force in man. This original significance has been buried, particularly by the jargon of the economists who equate riches with economic having. But no one sensing the truth of the deeper meaning would want to accept so vulgar a conception. Possession of money, the sheer having of money, is contemptible, and it always becomes contemptible if it falls into the hands of that poverty which denotes a not-being. Unfailingly, the mark of riches is that they lavish abundance like the Nile. Riches are the regal nature in man which goes through him like veins of gold. Riches can never be created by him who is born only to eat up – the mere consumer.

Can I become rich at all, by work or any other means? I can if I conceive riches as a having. What I do not have, I may have at some future time. What I do not have, I may have had in the past. The most ingenious definition of riches as a having is that of Aristotle. He defines riches as an abundance of tools. It is worth noting that he gives a technical definition and not an economic one. But to get back to our subject: Is technology identical with an abundance of tools? True, there is no lack of tools, although not of the kind Aristotle means in his definition, for he has neither mechanisms nor machinery in mind. By definition, technology is really nothing but a rationalization of the work process. But when have riches ever been created by rationalization? Is rationalization a sign of riches at all? Does it stem from abundance? Is its aim abundance? Or is it not rather a method which is used wherever a lack is felt, wherever want is suffered?

At what moment does it occur to the working human being to rationalize his work process? At the moment when he wants to save labor, when he becomes aware that he can get the fruits of his work in a quicker, easier, cheaper way. But how can the endeavor to cheapen things create riches? By raising the work performance and producing more goods, it will be answered. Indeed, just such an answer can be expected from the shallow mentality of the economist. If the result could be achieved as cheaply as that, we who are heirs to the pioneering work of generations should literally be swimming in riches of every kind. If we could get riches by raising production, by increasing the output of labor, we should have got them long ago, for the amount of mechanical and manual labor we are performing has been on the increase for a long time. If it were so, the signs of wealth would be apparent everywhere: greater freedom, greater happiness, greater abundance. But there is no trace of this. The fact that technical progress has enriched a small and not always pleasant group of industrialists, entrepreneurs, and inventors must not mislead us to the conclusion that it has created riches. It would be just as wrong for us to harbor the foolish notion that some exceptionally noble race of men had created our technology, or that scientists, scholars, and inventors were charitable by nature, for they are not. Their knowledge has nothing to do with riches, and therein lies the difference between all merely erudite knowledge and the knowledge of the wise. In the words of Pindar, wise is he who knows by nature much, in contrast to him who has accumulated much learning on the surface.

Where increased production and increased work are the consequences of a scarcity that had to be relieved, where they are due to an increase in consumption, they obviously cannot create riches. Every rationalization is the consequence of scarcity. The expansion and constant perfection of the technical apparatus are not merely the result of the technician's urge for power; they are just as much the result of want. This is why the human situation characteristic of our machine world is poverty. And this poverty cannot be overcome by any technological efforts; it is inherent in technology itself; it has marched in step with the industrial age and it will do so to the end. It marches on in the shape of the proletarian, brings the man who has no homestead and grows no ear of corn, who has nothing but his bare working capacity, and who is tied to technical progress for better or worse. Therefore, it makes no difference whether the technical apparatus is controlled by the capitalist, or by the proletarian, or run directly by the state. Poverty remains because it is in the nature of the thing, because it is the infallible by-product of technical thinking, which is completely rationalist. True, there has always been and always will be poverty, because the poverty which by definition is a not-being cannot be resolved and by its very nature will always be with us. But the poverty produced by technological progress has something specific about it which sets it apart. It can never be conquered by an unfolding of rational thought, nor by attaining the ultimate in rational work organization.