"Excessive" wealth
mike3
I've heard about elimination of "excessive" wealth as a key Baha'i
principle. But what does that mean? For example, if I went out to make
a great big pile of money (millions or billions of dollars) *so I
could use it to, say, do scientific research that the academic
mainstream didn't want to support, or to try and help the poor, or
otherwise benefit the world in ways I couldn't without it*, would that
be wrong and should such a thing be prohibited?
mike3
Douglas McAdam
To me that would not be excessive wealth. I once read that problems
arise from unsatisfied needs, wants and desires. A psychologist
friend told me the difference is that we need shelter, food, air, etc.
but we want a home and desire a castle.
I reasoned that our body has needs that must be satisfied, so does our
intellect and spirit and we can see the negative results in society
from them not being satisfied. We have polluted our natural resources
and caused a lot of health problems. Do we really have proper
intellectual education? Do we really have proper spiritual education?
We see excessive wealth and poverty. People have wealth beyond their
needs and others not enough to fulfill their needs.
The example you give to me is no excessive wealth for one of our
spiritual needs is to be of service to God and humanity and so to
acquire wealth beyond our individual physical needs in order to
realize this purpose is not excessive. However it might be a problem
if we do this and not help others out of their poverty.
We are supposed to have graduated income tax to reduce this
discrepancy between excessive poverty on one hand and excessive wealth
on the other.
regards,
doug
mike3
wrote:
> Hi Mike3-
> To me that would not be excessive wealth. I once read that problems
> arise from unsatisfied needs, wants and desires. A psychologist
> friend told me the difference is that we need shelter, food, air, etc.
> but we want a home and desire a castle.
> I reasoned that our body has needs that must be satisfied, so does our
> intellect and spirit and we can see the negative results in society
> from them not being satisfied. We have polluted our natural resources
> and caused a lot of health problems. Do we really have proper
> intellectual education? Do we really have proper spiritual education?
How can one acquire these two types of education, then, right now?
> We see excessive wealth and poverty. People have wealth beyond their
> needs and others not enough to fulfill their needs.
> The example you give to me is no excessive wealth for one of our
> spiritual needs is to be of service to God and humanity and so to
> acquire wealth beyond our individual physical needs in order to
> realize this purpose is not excessive. However it might be a problem
> if we do this and not help others out of their poverty.
>
As for that last bit, though, didn't I mention about using it to "try
and
help the poor"?
> We are supposed to have graduated income tax to reduce this
> discrepancy between excessive poverty on one hand and excessive wealth
> on the other.
>
However how would this impact the obtaining of money for the useful
purposes I mentioned?
Suzanne
Hi Mike,
No.. That would be using money for the benefit of others. That would
be a praiseworthy use of money. The teaching is the elimination of
the *extremes* of wealth and povery, and 'Abdu'l-Baha said that this
will come about as people become more spiritual and will not want to
live in opulence while others live in dire poverty without even enough
to eat. There is no justice in that.
Suzanne