The Wisdom of Money

by Pascal Bruckner, Steven Rendall (Translator)

Overview

Money is an evil that does good, and a good that does evil. It inspires hymns to the prosperity it enables, manifestos about the poor it leaves behind, and diatribes for its corrosion of morality. In The Wisdom of Money, one of the world’s great essayists guides us through the rich commentary that money has generated since ancient times—both the passions and the resentments—as he builds an unfashionable defense of the worldly wisdom of the bourgeoisie.

Bruckner begins with the worshippers and the despisers. Sometimes they are the same people—priests, for example, who venerate the poor from within churches of opulence and splendor. This hypocrisy endures in our secular world, he says, not least in his own France, where it is de rigueur even among the rich to feign indifference to money. It is better to speak plainly about money in the old American fashion, in Bruckner’s view. A little more honesty would allow us to see through the myths of money’s omnipotence but also the dangers of the aristocratic, ideological, and religious systems of thought that try to put money in its place. This does not mean we should emulate the mega-rich with their pathologies of consumption, competition, and narcissistic philanthropy. But we could do worse than defy three hundred years of derision from novelists and poets to embrace the unromantic bourgeois virtues of work, security, and moderate comfort. It is wise to have money, Bruckner tells us, and wise to think about it critically.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674972278
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Pascal Bruckner is an eminent novelist, philosopher, and critic.

Table of Contents

Translator's Note ix

Introduction: Lenin's Wishes 1

Part 1 The Worshippers and the Despisers

1 The Devil's Dung 9

2 On the Eminent Dignity of the Poor? 31

3 France, or the Taboo on Money 41

4 America, or Spiritual Money 60

Part 2 Three Myths about the Golden Calf

5 Money, the Ruler of the World? 79

6 Does Opulence Make People Unhappy? 108

7 Has Sordid Calculation Killed Sublime Love? 135

Part 3 Richesse Oblige

8 Should Bourgeois Values Be Rehabilitated? 165

9 Getting Rich Is Not a Crime (and Falling into Poverty Is Not a Virtue) 190

10 The Hand That Takes, the Hand That Gives Back 211

Conclusion: An Acknowledged Schizophrenia 234

Notes 239

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

Pascal Bruckner argues that money, or rather our relationship with money, says everything about us and our private lives… A stimulating and timely essay.

Le Monde

On the literary stock exchange, Bruckner is always a safe investment.

Le Figaro

A challenging and salutary essay, a rare exploration of our ambivalent relationship with money and especially—which is rarer—the hypocrisy that goes with it.

Le Postillon