Where money is coveted, the pursuit of it necessarily involves evil deeds which tear families apart and destroy society, or so the quote ‘money is the root of all evil” suggests. This adage has been widely depicted on the silver screen. The depiction of moral degeneration that accompanies the pursuit of money in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ which casts Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort, the stockbroker, who became more immoral the richer he got is one example. These downright unkind acts have admittedly occurred in real life, but it is not necessarily inevitable that society is therefore devoid of kindness and consideration of others. To debunk that, several commonly held assumptions about the pursuit of money have to be evaluated.
To claim that the pursuit of money necessarily results in a society devoid of consideration for especially the less fortunate is to assume that such endeavours seek to benefit only the individual and disregard the impact on the rest of society. The pursuit of money is assumed to be a single-minded end pursued without regard for the means adopted. The Lehman Brothers Minibond saga is often cited to illustrate how in a desperate bid to sell these structured investment products, financial consultants chose to omit critical information about risk exposure to retail investors, many of whom were elderly and less educated. This example underscores the merciless and even underhanded corporate tactics employed in a bid to meet performance targets. To agree with this is to allow an over-generalisation to obliterate the corporate philanthropic endeavours in society. These philanthropic acts are not random sporadic feel-good efforts but coordinated and sustained corporate initiatives. Encouraging corporate social responsibility has in fact become an integral part of many companies’ culture and values. MasterCard runs financial literacy programmes to educate the public to promote financial inclusion and literacy so that the layperson could also benefit from financial services. The DBS (Development Bank of Singapore) has backed numerous community development initiatives. DBS nurtures social enterprises that creatively and effectively address social needs and provide jobs, goods and services to the disadvantaged and marginalised. With responsible corporate philosophy, the pursuit of money does not necessarily result in a cold-blooded pursuit of money. Graciousness is evident when corporations pursue money yet also give back to society in a win-win partnership.
A second assumption is that competition for limited funds is exclusive and it necessarily aims to drive out competition. Graciousness stands in the way of unfriendly and even hostile tactics to drive out competition. Classic examples of ungracious behaviour towards those that society deems to be a threat can be seen in hostility towards unwelcomed immigrants, often regarded as competitors for scarce jobs and whose appeal lies in their willingness to settle for lower pay. This is evident in the hardening of attitudes towards immigrants among the British. Those surveyed indicated that the resentment towards immigrants arose from the belief that they came to claim welfare benefit for which the British have to fund. This assumption fails to recognise the real cause of the hostility and reluctance to be inclusive. It is not the pursuit of money that drives such ungracious behaviour towards immigrants; it is the insecurity borne out of fear that the privilege and rights that come with citizenship are compromised by the presence of a large population of immigrants. These ungracious acts should be addressed, not by regarding it as an inevitable consequence of the pursuit of money, but as a reflection of a need for clearer policy communication of how immigrants benefit the British economy. According to a report released this year on London’s economic future commissioned by its mayor, the pressure to reduce immigration is threatening London’s status as one of the world’s leading cities. It is understandable for ungracious acts to manifest due to growing insecurity in the face of competition that threatens bread-and-butter issues. However, to attribute it to the inevitability of pursuit of money is to disregard the deeper underlying cause of the insecurity which, when addressed, could temper emotions and reduce the incidence of ungracious behaviours.
It is also assumed that because the pursuit of money seeks to maximise profit and stretch every single dollar, all eyes are trained on the bottom line and exploitative acts are ignored or even deemed justified. This mentality is said to manifest in a less empathetic society and in extreme situations, have a dehumanising effect on how labour is regarded: labourers as money-making tools. Regarded as such, workers’ exploitation is evident. Sweatshop exploitation of workers and abuse of live-in domestic workers are not unheard of depictions of an ungracious society’s treatment of menial labour. The tragedy of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh drew the international spotlight on an industry where workers are not just subjected to harassment, violence and abuse, but whose basic guarantees of safety have also been thrown to the wind, to the extent that a building can collapse on top of thousands of workers. Closer to home, news reports of unkind treatment of domestic helpers are not unheard of. Yet, for a very long time, Singapore society fails to recognise such ungracious acts practised in theirs and their neighbours’ homes. Are these acts an inevitable outcome of the pursuit of money? Could the lives lost at this garment factory not have been prevented? Has society been so bent on making every dollar paid to the domestic helper count that it would not even allow her a day off a week? Thankfully not. What is witnessed is a twin trend of ground-up initiatives to check such behaviour and both national and international efforts to institute safeguards. Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) in Singapore is one non-profit organisation that seeks to improve social attitudes towards transient workers and advocate the protection of migrant workers. Increasingly, we also see society being more forthcoming in showing appreciation to construction workers in the form of lunch treats on special occasions. Even as the Singapore society strives to develop her economy and pursue money, there are visible efforts by pockets of people in the society to counter acts of ungraciousness and drive the development of a gracious society. Laws are also important to ensure inclusivity and check exploitative acts in the absence of natural graciousness in society. A combination of civil group advocacy and legislation will act to counter the development of an ungracious society even as society pursues money, however obsessively.
It assumes that the pursuit of money and graciousness are mutually exclusive notions. The two endeavours are deemed to be at odds because while one seeks to accumulate wealth, the other seeks to share the wealth, thereby reducing rather than increasing one’s possession of it. In fact, they can be complementary and the pursuit of money, in turn, encourages acts of graciousness. The pursuit of money is perhaps necessary to engender a gracious society as it places more individuals in positions to exercise grace to uplift society. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs demonstrates that when the physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, individuals seek to fulfil higher-order needs of love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation, with the highest level being self-transcendence when the self only finds its actualisation in giving itself to some higher goals, in altruism and spirituality. Love and belonging, esteem and self-transcendence are concomitants of acts of graciousness when the individual looks beyond the self to enrich the lives of others. The public outpouring of support in words or in-kind whenever disasters strike, as seen in the regional aid for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, or Nepal’s earthquake; and the generous donation garnered at the last minute to make it possible for the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum to purchase the three dinosaur fossils to contribute to the education of natural history heritage are all evidence of how wealth amassed is used to display care and consideration for others.
While there are seemingly persuasive grounds to suspect that the pursuit of money must mean giving little consideration to others, they are premised on debatable assumptions that the pursuit is singular, the tactics employed are cut-throat and the pursuit is an end in itself. This pursuit does not necessarily breed evil because of the existence of social and legal mechanisms to counter any such evil and to cultivate desired graciousness. We should also not doubt the human capacity to both seek to enrich the self and others at the same time.