How to be poor

Bomb of Damocles was hanging from the skies and could
have destroyed all of us at any moment, so — many felt — why bother about such
ridiculous matters as the environment, football pools, the price of vegetables
or the opening of new children’s playgrounds? The danger of this way of
thinking is twofold. Obviously, if there are no children, they will need no
playgrounds. But as long as we are here, they need playgrounds, we eat
vegetables and must spend our time somehow and many people know no better ways
of spending their times than filling out football-pool coupons. Where would we
be today if, for thirty years, we had not bothered to put our economy into
order? We would be even worse off than we are today. Where would we be today without
playgrounds, vegetables, football pools etc — in short: without having bothered
about all those trivialities? Yes, the danger existed that the Bomb might
explode; but there was also the danger that it might not — so we had to carry
on with our humdrum lives.
    The lesson humanity refuses to learn
is that problems are unsolvable. All problems. Because the solution of a
problem — although it may benefit millions and improve our lot — automatically
and always creates new problems. The new problems, in turn, must be solved and
they often are; but their solution, too, creates new problems and so on ad
infinitum. Sorry, I mean indefinitely.
    This hopelessness of solutions is
another example of vanitatum vanitas. It’s all in vain. But this
certainly does not mean, as it used to be fashionable to suggest, that we
should not wrestle with our petty problems. Here we are, this is our world. If
I am a grower of beans, I ought to go on growing beans whether there is a
threat of nuclear war or not. Because if I do not produce beans, we might find
ourselves without beans and without a nuclear war. Further, I cannot do
anything about the Bomb but I can do a lot, or at least a little, about beans.
In any case, Bomb or no Bomb: how am I to spend my time before the explosion?
    And there is one further
consideration: if I hurt my left toe very badly, this event will have little
historical significance. But I shall try to do my best to stop or alleviate the
pain. It’s my toe, my pain and to hell with history.
    Vanitatum vanitas ? Certainly. But on that very
superior, philosophical basis nothing is important. What are we in history? And
what is history itself? What is “one-day-here-the-next-day-gone” humanity? Or
even “one-million-years-here-the-other-million-gone” humanity? On a purely
philosophical basis this is very sound. But our toe-aches force us to act and
believe differently.
    Hic Rhodos, hic salta ! At one of the ancient Olympic Games at Athens a high jumper, who lost, tried to excuse himself by explaining that at home, in Rhodes, he could jump much higher. He was told: “Hic Rhodos, hic salta!” “Rhodes is here:
jump here!”

    The foregoing thoughts should serve
as an apology for the fact that I am wasting my, and the reader’s, time on a
theory which might be out of date in a few thousand years. Marxism failed to
solve certain problems; it did solve some others which — in the usual fashion —
created new ones and soon became out of date.
    At various moments of history various
forces of society — of the “establishment” — were predominant. They would
invariably grow too strong, become tyrannical and eventually have to be
defeated. They often started as forces ofjustice and continued as liberators,
before ending up as tyrants. Kings were badly needed as a unifying force to
begin with, but then they started believing in their own divinity, thus
becoming arrogant and despotic, and had to be either chased away or deprived of
most of their powers. The same happened to the oligarchy. Then to the nobility
in general. The same happened to the Church and — in other countries — to the
Army. They all came in as liberators, all ended up as tyrants. Powerful
capitalists followed and they exploited the workers most ruthlessly. Then the
Trade Unions took over — curbing the excessive powers of greedy capitalists — and
now they have become tyrants themselves.
    In the past whenever a change was
demanded, the supporters and beneficiaries (that means the same thing) always
called in God. To deprive kings of absolute power was sacrilege. To liberate
slaves, and later the serfs, was, once again, a diabolical act, the liberators
setting themselves up against the divine