Sense of Value

Hassanal Bolkiah, Sultan of Brunei since 1967, is considered one of the wealthiest men and longest reigning Asian monarch.  Although by today's standard of wealth compared to that of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Elon Musk, the Sultan would rank at the lower rung of the ladder.  However, there is one huge and obvious difference. The three other men worked hard  during much of their adult life to amass their wealth, while Hassanal Bolkiah was simply born into it. He was the eldest son of the then reigning sultan - his father - who abdicated the  throne in 1966.

We can only list a few of where the sultan's abundant wealth is spent on but it is enough to give us a sense of value that is excessively over the top. While one Ferrari may indicate wealth he has 450 of them. A Rolls Royce is ritzy enough but what about a $400 million golden one. A Boeing 747 that is so opulently appointed inside with gold and Lalique crystals, dubbed a "Flying Palace", is his mode of transport for three hour trips or longer . A wealthy dad may indulge his daughter with a brand new car but what is appropriate if you're the sultan?  On his daughter's birthday he gifted her a personal Airbus A340 (the go-to-jet by the world's airlines - with less than 400 of them in commercial service). If you think that is too much, what about a $20,000 haircut? Every month.  The sultan's barber lives in London. When it's time to get a trim, his barber is flown in on a round trip first class flight from London to Brunei.  He also gets paid in cash and tip to cover his "lost business" while away from his shop at Dorchester Hotel in London Mayfair. 

That is all it would take to put our sense of perspective in a discombobulated state, if it is not utterly stupefying.

What the sultan spends for his monthly haircut will pay the annual salary of a senior executive in the  city of Kuala Lumpur - capital of the neighboring country of Malaysia. And where does the earning power of a sidewalk vendor in the streets of Manila, or Rio de Janeiro, or of the factory worker in Bangladesh or Cambodia compare?  

If we just compare the earning power of those living in middle class Paris, Geneva or San Francisco with  the wretched poor in third world countries  it will only further aggravate our natural sense of values.

Over the course  of human history 99.999 % of men who amassed 99.999 % of the wealth in the entire world ever accumulated, not generated, were born into it. What?! You may ask. First, keep in mind that wealth generated by folks like Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Sam Walton, etc. are all modern phenomena.  Gates, Dell, Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc. worked for the wealth they generated.  Whereas for centuries before them, kings, despots, emperors, conquerors, accumulated wealth by and through all means which generations who followed (survivors, inheritors all) were born into.   Put another way, every royal dynasty we see today goes back innumerable generations ago. Every crown, every throne, that is worn or sat on today is inherited for as many generations it took from the original "royal blood". Every ruler who followed was born into it.

The sultanate of Brunei started in 1402. That is six centuries of generations of inheritors. I only pick Brunei because it is  much easier to follow its history. Let us not forget monarchies and royal institutions that to this day still exist - from the English throne, the house of Saud, royal houses in many parts of Europe, Japan's Emperors, etc.  

Lest we forget, the Chinese dynasties were already around before the B.C. era,

Years                       Dynasty (eras And Sub-eras)

c. 2100–1600 BC     Xia Dynasty

c.1600–1046 BC      Shang Dynasty

c. 1046–256 BC       Zhou Dynasty

c. 1046–771 BC       Western Zhou

More dynasties followed through the A.D. era until the last two - Ming from 1368 to 1644 and the Qin (1644-1912), that ended after the pivotal Boxer Rebellion.

Lest we forget also is the universal rule of, "You can't take it with you"; futile efforts of the Egyptian pharaohs, notwithstanding. Every  ruler  handed down wealth and power through the rule of inheritance to circumvent the inherent and deleterious effect of limited lifespans. Alexander the Great was rumored to have wept when there were no more empires to conquer but ironically died at the age of thirty.

Let us not forget that all the wealth ever created, lost or squandered were and still are only circulated here on this green earth, because until such time when humans can invest in equities or real estates on Mars or the moon, all the wealth remains here - distributed, divided, scattered, forcibly taken away, or passed on to generations of inheritors.

For most of our past history fortunes of royalty changed hands by force from one ruler to the next or when the majority of the ruled revolted against the rulers.

Fast forward to today and we see the shifting of fortunes through entrepreneurship. While it is looked upon as a better alternative to the rule of absolute rulership by monarchy, it is not without its faults.

"In 2022, it was estimated that the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 344.3 in the United States. This indicates that, on average, CEOs received more than 344 times the annual average salary of production and nonsupervisory workers in the key industry of their firm".

Two years ago I wrote, "The Other Side of Wealth" on Jan 15, 2023: 

Briefly, it was late in the 17th century when wealth started to transfer to ordinary people with extraordinary skills at running businesses and industries. That was right about after the Black Death that ravaged much of Europe. Monarchies began paying competitive wages to people to work the lands as workers/slaves were decimated by the deathly effects of the plague; soon followed by fiefdoms and royalties giving up much of their land for ordinary people to manage and develop.  Shortly after that the industrial revolution followed.

"The French Revolution was a period of major social upheaval that began in 1787 and ended in 1799. It sought to completely change the relationship between the rulers and those they governed and to redefine the nature of political power"

 

The Bolsheviks revolted against the tsarist regime in Russia that ended  the Romanov dynasty in 1917.

Some historians claim  it was the American Revolution that inspired  both the French and Russian revolutions.

Here we are today.  Are we in the midst of another disturbance in how we assess  sense of values as it applies to the predicament we find ourselves in? 

It is obviously a more complicated  task for any of us to arrive at an answer.  But why must we, in fact, try to find an answer? Our sense of value is best served by  asking this, "Is wealth the only source of happiness?"  If happiness is the ultimate goal, then we must first define what it is. And there lies the greatest quest but we find that in the end, wealth is not the answer.  

Our sense of happiness is in fact the beginning of our sense of value.  Children are happiest of all age groups because they do not yet know to want as much as what adults seek. 

I will close with what I wrote ten years ago, "Happiness Is.."

This much we know.  In any culture, from any region on earth, from the poorest to the wealthiest, from the most powerful to the ones barely able to defend their borders, the happiest from every population are the children.  Yoda had it right when he said, albeit in Yoda speak, “Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.” You see if laughter is the side effect of happiness, children seem to have an unlimited amount of it.  Not only that, children have the sincerest, most genuine form of laughter. I used to not pay attention until our grandchildren came to brighten our lives.  Reader’s Digest was right all along with their monthly, “Laughter is the best Medicine”.  If so, then children are the best portable carriers of it and they must be allowed to infect us all.