From Cyropaedia:
Indeed, a saying of [Cyrus] is handed down comparing a good king to a good shepherd—the shepherd must manage his flock by giving them all they need, and the king must satisfy the needs of his cities and his subjects if he is to manage them. We need not wonder, then, that with such opinions his ambition was to excel mankind in courtesy and care. There was a noble illustration of his philosophy in the answer we are told he gave to Croesus, who had taken him to task, saying his lavish gifts would bring him to beggary, although he could lay by more treasures for himself than any man had ever had before. Cyrus, it is said, asked him in return, “How much wealth do you suppose I could have amassed already, had I collected gold, as you bid me, ever since I came into my empire?”
Croesus chastised Cyrus for giving away too much instead of accumulating more wealth for himself. He asked Croesus how much money he should be in possession of.
And Croesus named an enormous sum. Then Cyrus said, “Listen, Croesus, here is my friend, Hystaspas, and you must send with him a man that you can trust.” Then, turning to Hystaspas, “Do you,” he said, “go round to my friends and tell them that I need money for a certain enterprise—and that is true, I do need it. Bid each of them write down the amount he can give me, seal the letter, and hand it to the messenger of Croesus, who will bring it here.” Thereupon Cyrus wrote his wishes and put his seal on the letter, and gave it to Hystaspas to carry round, only he added a request that they should all welcome Hystaspas as a friend of his. And when the messengers came back, the officer of Croesus carrying the answers, Hystaspas cried, “Cyrus, my lord, you must know I am a rich man now! I have made my fortune, thanks to your letter! They have loaded me with gifts.”
Cyrus sent his assistant to various friends asking how much money they could pledge to him. His assistant comes back, ecstatic, saying that the gifts alone given by those friends has made him a rich man.
And Cyrus said, “There, Croesus, that is treasure number one; and now run through the rest, and count what sums I have in hand, in case I need them.” And Croesus counted, and found, so the story tells us, that the sum was far larger than the amount he had said would have been lying in the treasury if only Cyrus had made a hoard.
In addition, the amount pledged by his friends exceeded the vast sum that Croesus originally stated, revealing that Cyrus, through his style of rule and approach to wealth, was far wealthier than the amount of gold in his vault.
At this discovery Cyrus said, so we are told, “You see, Croesus, I have my treasures too. Only you advise me to collect them and hide them, and be envied and hated because of them, and set mercenaries to guard them, putting my trust in hirelings. But I hold to it that if I make my friends rich they will be my treasures themselves, and far better guards too, for me and all we have, than if I set hired watchmen over my wealth.
And I have somewhat else to say; I tell you, Croesus, there is something the gods have implanted in our souls, and there they have made us all beggars alike, something I can never overcome. I too, like all the rest, am insatiate of riches, only in one respect I fancy I am different. Most men when they have more wealth than they require bury some of it underground, and let some of it rot, and some they count and measure, and they guard it and they air it, and give themselves a world of trouble, and yet for all their wealth they cannot eat more than they have stomach for–they would burst asunder if they did–nor wear more clothes than they can carry–they would die of suffocation–and so their extra wealth means nothing but extra work.
Cyrus stated that accumulation of wealth beyond one’s capacity to consume it breeds ill-will and waste.
For my part, I serve the gods, and I stretch out my hands for more and more; only when I have got what is beyond my own requirements I piece out the wants of my friends, and so, helping my fellows, I purchase their love and their goodwill, and out of these I garner security and renown, fruits that can never rot, rich meats that can work no mischief; for glory, the more it grows, the grander it becomes, and the fairer, and the lighter to be borne; it even gives a lighter step to those who bear it. One thing more, Croesus, I would have you know; the happiest men, in my judgment, are not the holders of vast riches and the masters who have the most to guard; else the sentinels of our citadels would be the happiest of mortals, seeing they guard the whole wealth of the state. He, I hold, has won the crown of happiness who has had the skill to gain wealth by the paths of righteousness and use it for all that is honourable and fair.”
That was the doctrine Cyrus preached, and all men could see that his practice matched his words.
If you sent out an email to your social network asking for help or favors, how many would be willing to help? Perhaps this is a more accurate total of the wealth you truly have, and not what is in your bank account.
Previously: Cyropaedia: The Education Of Cyrus
Well and truly stated. History is inflationary, and only the fool will senselessly hoard wealth like a miser.
Yup, no matter how much you learn or gain, it means nothing if it is not shared; for you cannot take it with you when you die.
Yup, no matter how much you learn or gain, it means nothing if it is not shared; for you cannot take it with you when you die.
“History is inflationary”
No shit sherlock, inflation is just another tax. However, cash can be a good thing to hold. I always like to hold cash because you can easily take advantage of anything that happens. Cash is very liquid and is can be very, very valuable when crisis hits. Anyone who’s actually well read in financial history will tell you: during a panic, cash is king.
There are depressionary periods and inflationary periods in any lifetime. You’ve got to be prepared for both.
While needless overspending might be the sign of a fool, needles saving is the sign of a coward.
While needless overspending might be the sign of a fool, needles saving is the sign of a coward.
Somewhat true. What does a man gain by hoarding everything he has made, and just partying without increasing himself to have even more connections with other people thus enriching his life. And enlarging the connections he already possesses.
Cyrus was wise in the fact that he knew the true value of money as a tool like any other. Money is used as a means to accomplish a goal, not a goal in itself like many ignoble simpletons think.
The more you are able to give the more power you have. Those who give little are powerless and the mark of a strong man is generosity.
Another kind of wealth is friends , family and relationships….very important. Often more important than actual money $$$.
Another kind of wealth is friends , family and relationships….very important. Often more important than actual money $$$.
Just more proof that men are not the bastards we are painted to be in this day and age; and the Croesuses of the world merely want to horde for themselves, and blame all and sundry for their plight. Yet the truly wealthy are those with others to aid them.
I too am a rich man then. The only caveat is that you screen who will give you gifts as Cyrus obviously did. He shamed his detractor by comparing his nonsense to its opposite and making the appropriate response merely by observation. Sadly, that seems to not be taught.
you can’t make a lot of money [billions] without
A) helping a lot of people [buffet, gates, branson]
or
B) being an corrupt authoritarian dictator [assad, gaddhafi, oil sheikhs etc]
Were Assad, Gaddhafi etc really as corrupt as the media made them out to be? Think about what is happening in the middle east before pointing the finger please.
yes they were. yes the new people are worse.
Buffet is extremely corrupt.
Every one of his major business lines and deals relies on him calling upon political favour in many ways, and his whole industry (financial engineering) can only create the wealth it does for people like himself due to the Federal reserve creating asset booms.
At least Branson built something of value, real services from nothing but ideas, as did Gates (although you have to wonder, if it wasn’t for Microsoft being in bed with the US gov would he have ever risen to such heights?).
Just more proof that men are not the bastards we are painted to be in this day and age; and the Croesuses of the world merely want to horde for themselves, and blame all and sundry for their plight. Yet the truly wealthy are those with others to aid them.
I too am a rich man then. The only caveat is that you screen who will give you gifts as Cyrus obviously did. He shamed his detractor by comparing his nonsense to its opposite and making the appropriate response merely by observation. Sadly, that seems to not be taught.
Hmm. But today’s wealth “hoards” actually make the economy more efficient, according to Randall Parker. The well meaning effort by billionaires to “give back” will just allocate capital into less efficient or even wasteful areas:
Gates And Buffett Quest Will Lower Investment Quality
http://www.parapundit.com/archives/007256.html
Ayn Rand has taken a lot flak lately, but she did get a few important things right, including her emphasis on the quality of the minds which make decisions about the most productive uses of the world’s resources. I’ve tried to make the case with my transhumanist friends that we should consider the abilities of self-made billionaires as a kind of “superpower” we would want to have for ourselves, in addition to fantasies about super-intelligence, super-strength, superior social skills and so forth.
Hmm. But today’s wealth “hoards” actually make the economy more efficient, according to Randall Parker. The well meaning effort by billionaires to “give back” will just allocate capital into less efficient or even wasteful areas:
Gates And Buffett Quest Will Lower Investment Quality
http://www.parapundit.com/archives/007256.html
Ayn Rand has taken a lot flak lately, but she did get a few important things right, including her emphasis on the quality of the minds which make decisions about the most productive uses of the world’s resources. I’ve tried to make the case with my transhumanist friends that we should consider the abilities of self-made billionaires as a kind of “superpower” we would want to have for ourselves, in addition to fantasies about super-intelligence, super-strength, superior social skills and so forth.
“If you sent out an email to your social network asking for help or
favors, how many would be willing to help? Perhaps this is a more
accurate total of the wealth you truly have, and not what is in your
bank account.”
Well, most of them will if you are on top of your game but how many of those friends will help out when you are really in need?
Cyrus got all that support because of his position – Politics is the name of that game.
And to put this into perspective, wealth was accumulated in that society – because, how else could any of his friends lend him anything?
But it’s true, it’s not smart to show off your wealth to anybody.
The modern economy is designed to encourage debt and no savings. To tie-in every subject into the system.
This is a good article. As I was reading this article, I automatically started thinking of my favorite show, Boardwalk Empire. It’s about this guy named Nucky Thompson who secretly controlled Atlantic City during the Prohibition Era. Nucky controlled Atlantic City because he provide things that people wanted. He gave jobs to workers. Money and Women to politicians. Liquor shipments to his gangster business partners. This is how men for thousands of years have amassed POWER over other people for long periods of time. You become the source of people’s pleasure and become the solution to people’s pain.
This is a good article. As I was reading this article, I automatically started thinking of my favorite show, Boardwalk Empire. It’s about this guy named Nucky Thompson who secretly controlled Atlantic City during the Prohibition Era. Nucky controlled Atlantic City because he provide things that people wanted. He gave jobs to workers. Money and Women to politicians. Liquor shipments to his gangster business partners. This is how men for thousands of years have amassed POWER over other people for long periods of time. You become the source of people’s pleasure and become the solution to people’s pain.
I have an uncommon view of super-wealthy people, apparently: I view them as “early adopters” or “beta testers” of future living standards. Fernand Braudel in one of his books similarly writes that rich people have the job of trying out new kinds of goods which poor people will enjoy a few generations later.
Just a few centuries ago, for example, only wealthy Europeans could afford handkerchiefs. They gave them as gifts and listed them in their wills as valuable property to their heirs. (Yeah, I know it sounds gross to inherit a used handkerchief before the invention of modern laundering techniques.) Yet today you can buy all the handkerchiefs you want from a Walmart for a working man’s pocket money.
Similar forms of wealth have followed the same trajectory.
“A History of Humanity to 3400 AD: Daily Life,” by Thomas Donaldson, Ph.D. (1979):
I would rather be where I am now, than one of the so called Robber Barons of late 1800s early 1900s.
That’s a bum jules….
Jesus said the same thing:
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” (Luke 16:9 NIV)
it seems this Cyropaedia is free on kindle. I shall use this “If you sent out an email to your social network asking for help or
favors, how many would be willing to help? Perhaps this is a more
accurate total of the wealth you truly have, and not what is in your
bank account.” idea
This might have been great advice in the past but in the modern world, forget it. If you get people rich without becoming rich yourself they’ll think of you as a sucker and when you’re legitimately in need they won’t pick up the phone. We’re living in a world of Croesuses, not Cyruses.
Exactly. What’s that old saying, “when times are tough you really find out who your friends are.”
Good evening,
A little bit Off-topic, but… why has been deleted the previous article named “Letting women into your life” (the vampire’s one), which I have in my RSS reader?
Thanks.
It was incorrectly scheduled. It will appear tomorrow.
Thanks very much for the aclaration.
Douglas, I am not telling, you have to come back tomorrow 🙂
i write things here:http://www.returnofkings.com/15102/carry-the-big-stick
Thanks very much for the aclaration.
Douglas, I am not telling, you have to come back tomorrow 🙂
who is the “vampire”?
real wealth creation = using tools to make items other people want.
false wealth creation = we are told the rich investor class make jobs, when they just make laws that result in offshoring of said jobs, impoverishing the workforce and destroying everyone else’s wealth.
real governance = when leaders do unpopular things that enable better ‘social contracting’ (ie social contracting = people power).
false governance = when the rich sponsor both political parties and use the media to generate a false left/right paradigm, giving the public the illusion of choice where none exists.
looks like its starting to catch on that you cant have a real economy unless you actually make something
I’m confused you said the same thing in you 2 points and then asserted that it’s contradictory. The term “investor” which means extracting value after putting money into something
Once again, this is XENOPHON talking, not Cyrus. His “Cyrus” is wholly his own creation. If you want info on the real, historical Cyrus, read Herodotus, Book I.
That said, the book is fantastic, as I said on the other thread. But there is a deeper level here, which you are missing, but which Machiavelli explains (with direct reference to the Cyropaedia) in Prince 16 (“Of Liberality and Parsimony”).
In the passages quoted here Cyrus is being “exoteric”, that is, stating a public doctrine which people can admire. It’s a manosphere maxim to “watch what people do, not what they say.” Well, the same is true of Cyrus in this book (and many characters in many great books). There is the “argument” (the speeches and overt explanations) and then there is the “action” (the deeds that are recounted but are otherwise unexplained).
Xenophon is master of this. He has his characters say all sorts of things and then he very unobtrusively depicts them doing something else and leaves it to the reader to figure out what is really going on.
Well, Old Nick figured it out and explained in Prince 16. Cyrus was stingy with his own property, but liberal with the property of others. The latter half of this equation was how he made and kept friends. It’s also how he kept his army together and loyal to him. In fact, it is the entire basis of his transformation of republican “Persia” in the Persian Empire.
The distinction between friends and enemies remains fundamental. Cyrus’ innovation is to vastly expand the circle of friends, and to couple that with a far more ambitious exploitation of a far greater cohort of enemies.
“Cyrus was stingy with his own property, but liberal with the property of others.”
Yes, but the point is that Cyrus could have taken all the property of others for himself, but instead rewarded his friends with it.
No, he couldn’t have.
Roosh said something very profound at the end of his post. “If you sent out an email to your social network asking for help or favors, how many would be willing to help? Perhaps this is a more accurate total of the wealth you truly have, and not what is in your bank account.”
Xenophon, as I have mentioned elsewhere, was a student and friend of Socrates. In fact, a “Socrates” or Socrates-like character makes a cameo appearance in the Cyropaedia (III 1.38-40). In Xenophon’s most important Socratic work, the Oeconomicus, he recounts and conversation in which Socrates argues that friends
are wealth. Socrates was poor but he had real friends. To stick for the moment only to mundane matters, they supported his (extremely modest) lifestyle and when he was condemned by Athens they were willing to pay huge sums to get him off the hook (but he declined their help). True friendship for Xenophon and Socrates goes much deeper than this of course, but their devotion points to it.
Cyrus on the other hand really has no true friends. Or, maybe one (Araspes). Everyone else is with him either because they are being directly benefited or out of fear. (Many readers tend to miss the subtle signs that Xenophon presents of Cyrus’ use of terror.)
But let’s stay with the former. On one level the Cyropaedia is a big
“either/or” presentation. You can have this or that but not both. This is echoed by Machiavelli’s statement (Discourses I 6) that no inconvenience is ever avoided without another emerging.
The Cyropaedia begins with a small polis or “city-state” and ends with (the breakup of) an empire. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The polis is small and austere but stable and long-lived. The empire is very rich and filled with various arts, but it is a despotism ruled by fear, compulsion, secret police, etc. The polis is based on inherited wealth whereas in the empire even the low born can rise to the level of their merits (e.g., Pheraulas).
And so on.
One purpose of the book is to show that each of these two polar opposite regimes has real strengths and real weaknesses and perhaps there is no real regime which could be all strength and no weakness.
Now, to your point: Cyrus transforms ancient “Persia,” which is really an improved Sparta or the best possible Greek polis or city-state. For instance, there is no slavery. But there is “class injustice” as it were. There is an artificial distinction between peers and commons that is not based on anything natural and is therefore unjust, not to say unnecessary. The result is class conflict to
such an extent that the peers have to hang around the city all the time just to make sure the commons don’t revolt (much the way the Spartans did not like distant campaigns for fear of a Helot revolt).
Cyrus, in his famous speech at II 1.15-18, basically says to the commons, I know you’ve been getting screwed by the way things are. But I have a way around that. We peers are going to arm you. We used to be afraid to do that but not anymore. We will arm you, and then together, we will wring the good life by stealing from others.
This book was written 2,000 years before the modern concept of the conquest of nature or of economic growth became philosophically “acceptable.” The ancients conceived of such an idea (see Plato and Plutarch on “techne”) but rejected it as dangerous and unwise. So, for Xenophon, you getting rich always means making someone else poor. Wealth=theft and empire=despotism.
So, what the book shows is that Cyrus is followed because he is liberal with the property of others. He would not be followed if not for that. His whole project would go nowhere, Indeed, it is the essence of his project that Persia become basically a very large armed gang that steals from others. There is no possibility of him hoarding all wealth to himself because the stolen wealth is literally the food and fuel that keeps the whole enterprise going.
And, as noted, this did not make anyone Cyrus’ friend. Really, he has no friends. He lives in fear of assassination and must inspire fear in others.
The man with true friends is Socrates. The biggest “either/or” presented by the book is, How should one live? Who is the highest human type? The greatest man of action (Cyrus) or the wisest man (Socrates)? Xenophon never states the answer outright but he indicates that the answer is Socrates.
I note also that in the Memorabilia Xenophon calls Socrates “blessed” and “happy”; he never says anything like that about Cyrus.
Your analysis is excellent, and I commend you for your research. You are right to say Cyrus probably did not have true friends as Socrates did.
However, you missed one thing. The original point of Roosh’s post isn’t about having true friends. It’s about how to manage one’s wealth and become as wealthy as possible.
Thus Cyrus, instead of being a miser, was liberal with the property of others and made friends based on these business deals, which then allowed him to become even wealthier.
Hence the title of the post, “How To Manage Your Wealth.”
Great comment.
Great exchange between you and Escoffier. Now that’s what I call a dialogue. Love it…and reminds me why I’m so addicted to ROK….
Needless to say, I still disagree.
First, Cyrus is not engaged in “business” but in conquest
and theft. There is no conception of business
in the book, which is not to say that there was none in the ancient world. But there was not our idea of the possibility
of economic growth—a modern idea which turned out to be true. Or, it is more accurate to say that the ancients
did conceive of the possibility but rejected it as a bad idea. Xenophon, in this very book, comes closest to
recommending it but pulls back at several points, most notably by showing that
Cyrus’ empire falls apart immediately after his death (VIII 8).
(In fact, the real Persian Empire did NOT revolt after the
death of Cyrus the Great—Herodotus I 214.
This is one of Xenophon’s “lessons.”
But the conqueror of Cyrus’ kingdom, Alexander the Great, suffered exactly
the same fate as Xenophon’s Cyrus. His successors
quarreled and his empire broke up. See
Prince IV, which is the Cyrpaedia in miniature.
Xenophon could not have anticipated this in particular but he appears to
have anticipated it in theory. Remember,
his “Cyrus” is really Greek, not Persian.)
And, I did take Roosh’s point to about having true friends,
or true wealth, which he counts as friends, not money. In that, Roosh is with Socrates and Xenophon
and not with Cyrus. I do think he is a
bit dazzled by Xenophon’s surface portrayal of Cyrus’ amazing success but I
also think that he intuited Xenophon’s deeper point.
Cyrus was liberal solely because it served his temporal
interests. His liberality is all
calculation. Cyrus practices, to borrow
a phrase from a later era, “self-interest rightly understood.” He is, not really wise, but intelligent and
calculating. He knows what will maximize
his own power. He “gives” in order to aggrandize
himself. And, really, he only gives what
he takes.
Once again, he could not simply hoard it all unto
himself. That is not a realistic
option. A legitimate despot ruling a
homogenous population could do that, but a conqueror of many nations, who
relies on a “multicultural” army cannot.
Neither loyalty nor comity nor patriotism nor friendship will keep them together. Every man is in it for himself, and his
reward comes solely from the favor of Cyrus.
Now, if your point is simply that it is better to be liberal
than to be a miser, and/or that there are benefits from liberality that do not
accrue to misers, then I agree—and so does Xenophon. The book shows, as you note, how Cyrus
profited from his liberality. What it does
not show, but hints at, is the limits of that profit. Xenophon elsewhere shows—above all in the
Oeconomicus—what true profit is.
Really, the key here is to compare Xenophon’s account Cyrus’
“liberality” with Aristotle’s very straightforward account of the virtue of liberality
in Nicomachean Ethics (IV 4.1-2). That
is true liberality, which both Xenophon and Socrates would agree with,
I benefitted much from your learned comment. I have not read the Cyropaedia, but from reading Roosh’s review and the comments here I would hazard a comment of my own.
My take on all this is that in Xenophon’s day, modern concepts of precision in historiography had not yet developed. History (with the exception of Thucydides) and biography had not yet come into their own, and were sort of viewed as branches of rhetoric or moral philosophy.
Xenophon uses his imaginary Cyrus as a way of propounding his own ideas of schooling and government. In his day, such rhetorical devices and imaginary biography were accepted practice. With few exceptions, all ancient historians filled the mouths of their historical characters with imaginary speeches.
Xenophon, always the general, believed that the best government was an enlightened monarchy backed up by a disciplined aristocracy.
My guess is that Xenophon held the Persians (and their respect for law and order) up as exemplars for his fellow Greeks, as a way of criticizing the unruly and individualistic Hellenic peoples. In this sense he was similar to Tacitus, who in his “Germania” described the martial customs of the Germanic peoples as a way of criticizing the effete and degenerate Romans.
This question is an aside to the article but nonetheless indirectly relevant:
Does the manosphere have something akin to a prenup sample template?
My buddy is going ahead and doing the stupid thing of marrying his girl and at the very least if he wont let me talk him out of the marriage , i have managed to persuade him to do a prenup to protect his assets.
A manosphere friendly template would be much obliged, cheers
Perhaps a pre-wedding gift of one hour with an attorney who is experienced in these matters would be a good gesture. Template? I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Just curious, who is he marrying?
you know this was about two years ago, and i can’t even remember which friend i was talking about. i think it was to a girl from uni
It is probably the friend who is now living in hell and about to be divorced raped up the ass. Invite him over for a beer and then launch into, “I told you so!!!!!” He could probably use a shoulder to cry on but please let me know.
very good post roosh, enjoyed it and found it quite stimulating
I think friendship and money don’t go well together anymore these days (if they ever did).
If you fall on hard times 95% of friends, as well as your family have very low limits to what they’re willing to give to you, until they cut you off, unless you both went through hard times together or are extremely closely blood related (brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents).
I think the better modern day equivalent would be being able to rely on your network for a job if you go broke, or investments into a new venture if you should need it and your friends know that you have had substantial previous success and aren’t a deadbeat.
Most friendships are made for mututal entertainment and are mostly not very strategic.
What matters isn’t how much money you have already, but how much you can generate.