Michael Jackson and the Curse of Mamon

Michael Jackson 1958-2009 was killed by a disease which few of us will have to ever worry about, and yet everyone must give a thought to for  political reasons.  Its called too much money.  Most of us don’t have enough of the stuff, but in excess, like everything else its a killer.  Fortunately it can’t kill his music….although it may have prevented more of it (after the ’80s) from being born.  Like most non-readers of the tabloid press, I could take the music and leave the man.

Fundamentally, Michael Jackson was no better or worse than any of the rest of us…well, he could sing a lot better.  Furthermore he was exposed to the rudiments of Judeo-Christian morality at an early age via a sect which many have theological objections to, but is known for its rigor.  But when too much money syndrome strikes all of that is likely to be swept away.  The problem becomes acute when you have enough money to isolate yourself from the rest of the human race, when you can live in a palace surrounded by walls and guards, and when your only contact with fellow bipeds takes the form of  those who are an extention of your personality.  It doesn’t matter who these people are, they could be agents, menials, prostitutes, children, or best of all those non-human friends we call pets.  The common denominator is that they offer no opposition to ones will.

Anyone, left to their own devices, could be seduced into such a lifestyle.  But whereas Presley and Jackson had the resources to indulge their whims, the rest of us have been saved by being providentially strapped for cash.  At this point you will see that I have handed the left yet another compelling argument for confiscatory taxation.  If money is bad for your health, like cigaretts, then the most compassionate way of dealing with the rich is to take the toxin away from them.  It would really be for their own good.

But faithful readers of this blog will be relieved to know that Pico Ultraorientalis still counts himself among those “low-tax liberals” who are proud to call themselves libertarians.  Still, I would like to see a less flipant view of wealth in libertarian circles.   Fortunately people arn’t going around wearing $ pendants the way they did back in the heyday of Ayn Rand and the Nathaniel Branden Institutes.  Being rich, like being selfish was once hailed as a virtue to tweek the Marxist pretention that “the wretched of the earth” had earned their proletarian dictatorship simply by virtue of suffering.  But the shelf life of this ironic rhetoric has long expired.

Yes, money kills, but that in itself doesn’t justify its probibition.  Like sex, it is a test of character, and a test that most of us are apt to fail.  We are saved by scarcity…and not just saved but made to use our wits to preserve ourselves.  If too much money provides a dangerous dose of  moral anesthesia…the reason isn’t in the earning, but in the use of it.  Libertarians can fortify themselves in the knowlege that confiscatory taxation is a two edged sword.  Yes, it might save the rich from self-distruction…but it shifts the toxin to society in general.

As sad as Michael Jackson’s end might be, the salient tragedy of our time is a political class with virtually unlimited access to money.  Society has been poisoned by the ability of government to tax, print, and borrow funds without limit.  Just as in the case of a super-rich individual, the effect of endless government expenditure is to destroy any principle of resistance to the whim of the moment.

Personally, if it comes down to sacrificing the rich or society in general to the curse of Mamon, I will choose the rich.  Let them keep their money, if only to prevent it from entering the bloodstream of the body politic.  I know this sounds like some sort of bizzare joke.  Indeed, it takes the death of a once-beloved celebrety like Michael Jackson to make people realize, if only momentarily, that it is no joke.

But is the curse always fatal?  Is that needle’s eye so small that the proverbial camel is doomed to stay outside its gate?  I don’t claim to know the answer to such a mystery…but my preference is for free will.  Knowing that money can distroy you is no excuse for abandoning your ambitions.  Perhaps the wisest money philosophy was enunciated three hundred years ago by John Westley (or was it Charles…I’m not a Methodist) who enunciated three principles 1) earn as much as you can, 2) save as much as you can, and 3) give away as much as you can.

And on that concluding note I’d like to mention that, in addition to his wonderful music, Michael Jackson endowed the world with many generous charitable contributions.  Whatever his faults, let’s pray that his camel squeezes through those pearly gates.