22. One Man’s Profit Is Another Man’s Loss

This is a very short essay from Montaigne, and it makes a point that business transactions are a zero sum game. No one attains wealth, according to Montaigne, unless someone else is losing it.

Economists would disagree with Montaigne’s assessment, but bear in mind he’s writing from the vantage point of a feudal economy. His home city of Bordeaux was a major trading hub in Europe, and his family fortune was made through trading as well.

But I think Montaigne’s judgmental attitude was influenced more by his position on the Bordeaux parlement, which wasn’t so much a legal body as a trade board, a place where political influence was weighed with law to mitigate commercial disputes.

He is making an interesting point, however, that does point out some of the cultural contradictions of late capitalism:

The merchant can only thrive by tempting youth to extravagance; the husbandman, by the high price of grain; the architect, by the collapse of buildings; legal officials, by lawsuits and quarrels between men; the very honorariums and the fees of the clergy are drawn from our deaths and our vices.

Economic growth would no doubt be higher, for example, if we repealed all health and safety regulations and eliminated the Environmental Protection Agency. We could allow lead in gasoline, put flurocarbons back in aerosol cans. We’d create massive social problems with the lead poisoning and we’d destroy the ozone layer we worked so hard to restore, but yeah, we’d probably make some people richer in the process.

We could also repeal all MPG requirements for automobiles sold, and boost the auto industry. We’d pay a massive price soon enough due to the increased emissions, but if you’re all-in on the “climate change is fake news” bandwagon, might as well go all out.

Montaigne closes this very short essay with a thought from Lucretius that could easily be embraced by a modern organization like Greenpeace:

For when anything is changed and sallies forth from its confines, it is at once the death of something which previously existed.