Seneca, Moral Letters 87.14

Let us suppose that we have been summoned to an assembly; an act dealing with the abolition of riches has been brought before the meeting. Shall we be supporting it, or opposing it, if we use these syllogisms? 
 
Will these syllogisms help us to bring it about that the Roman people shall demand poverty and praise it—poverty, the foundation and cause of their empire—and, on the other hand, shall shrink in fear from their present wealth, reflecting that they have found it among the victims of their conquests, that wealth is the source from which office-seeking and bribery and disorder have burst into a city once characterized by the utmost scrupulousness and sobriety, and that because of wealth an exhibition all too lavish is made of the spoils of conquered nations; reflecting, finally, that whatever one people has snatched away from all the rest may still more easily be snatched by all away from one? 
 
Nay, it were better to support this law by our conduct and to subdue our desires by direct assault rather than to circumvent them by logic. If we can, let us speak more boldly; if not, let us speak more frankly. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 87 

 
My stodgy friends are forever chasing after the almighty dollar, while my edgy friends are plotting to blow up the banks, but they are all working from the false assumption that our lives must be defined by the struggle between the haves and the have-nots. It never occurs to any of them how the only battle of consequence is the one between our virtues and our vices. 
 
Seneca does not hate riches, but he is concerned that a reliance on prosperity will be a deathblow to integrity. In the end, money is nothing more than a means of exchange, and we should really be asking ourselves whether there is greater worth in character or in commodities. The price we are willing to pay will depend upon our deeper principles, such that decent folks will place more value in compassion than they will in gold. 
 
If we cared first for the state of our souls, we would be content with very little property, knowing full well how a simplicity on the outside can reflect a purity on the inside. Do I need marble fixtures in order to increase my understanding? Must a swimming pool be a prerequisite for offering love? I’m afraid my longing for luxury is usually a sign that I am neglecting my humanity. 
 
Wherever charity is present, there will always be more than enough to go around. Even as the politicians promise to redistribute the wealth, and the economists contrive to create more of it, and the scholars scribble away at their treatises, those of common sense and goodwill are busy looking out for their neighbors, humbly aware of why there can never be a good for the one at the expense of another. 
 
Despite all the grandstanding, the world will not be saved by legislation, or fiscal policies, or chains of syllogisms. The progress begins when one man acts to restrain his avarice, and he thereby encourages the next man to pass it on. There is no other way to improve the human condition than the practice of human excellence, because virtues are ordinary habits, not pretentious abstractions. 
 
If I really want to be happy, I need to start taking less for myself and giving more of myself. 

—Reflection written in 2/2014