Benjamin Franklin Sucks

There is a precariously-leaning stack of unasked questions that I am saving up like a girl scout hoarding black-market cookie profits. These feel like unaskable questions, in a way, since they subvert certain facades that we live our lives under. 

I want to ask everyone I meet: Why are you amassing more money? Why are you going in for rigged money wizardry that magically produces money out of money even when you have enough? Even when we know it isn’t fair, when we know that the moral arc of US capitalism is not bending towards justice but towards a smaller and smaller group of people having too much while most don’t have what they need? Why am I doing it?

A popular answer, of course, is retirement. “When we are old and ripe with beautiful knowledge but yes, less nimble, we need to have a nest egg of money that we started saving at age 21 so that we have another option of life outside of helpfully and cleanly off-ing ourselves to make way for productive members of society.” There’s of course a lot of assumptions being made in this situation: 1. That we don’t die before we retire, 2. That we ever retire, 3. That we will ever be able to save enough money, 4. That we even have the ability to save for retirement, 5. That one of many other things might happen. 

I want to cut through it all but remain respectful of the human desire to be safe. This, to me, is all about the simple desire for security. Old age is terrifying as our safety net of attractiveness and productivity frays from beneath us. We all want to be safe and since we are from the US and living during this period of time in late capitalism, money is the way to assure this. 

It’s frowned upon to frown upon this. We are supposed to buck up and save, after all! It’s part of our duty as citizens; we must ease the burden of our aging body on the state. It fits nicely into bootstrap philosophy; we know that Benjamin Franklin saved like a neurotic champ. He also was, by many accounts, an asshole and philanderer. 

Photo by Adam Nir on Unsplash

Money, and especially the desperate, draining, and eternal pursuit and amassment of it, will not make us safe. Having higher numbers in our savings account as we approach older age will not change the fact that we are older, that the world is unpredictable, that life changes. 

It is not naïve to question our financial systems and institutions; they are, in fact, set up to make most of us lead frantic lives of desperation. Even those of us who were raised with class privilege still feel frantic about our money; after all, it isn’t a real thing, and it can all very easily vanish in an instant. Having lots of money doesn’t give us comfort; in fact, we might find that, the more money we amass, the more underlying anxiety we might sense humming in the background. We should question that veneer of comfort and security, since it’s only paper-deep. We should also question the very idea of banks, retirement accounts, investment, and the stock market; these institutions are not there for the good of the people. They seem to work really well for a handful of us—for white folks with intergenerational wealth—but they could care less about people without wealth or who have more melanin or who don’t speak English. It is not naïve to have doubts about investing or buying stocks; it can be a very thoughtful refusal. 

We can live our ethics just as much by what we don’t do. 

Since our notion of safety and security is so tied up in wealth, we really have to make a life-long study into different ways of feeling safe. We can start, very simply, with small, everyday ways of feeling safer and more held in the world, in our communities and in our own bodies. We can intentionally try to show up as a safe person for the people in our lives, so that our beloveds know that they are held and supported by us. If we put our hearts into this, maybe we'll find that we can move further away from the idea that wealth is what saves us; we can start really investing in collective liberation and wellness.

We can be each other's wildest dreams.

Because I have a thing against Benjamin Franklin, I’m going to end with some playful vitriol. Read on if you want to hear me destroy some of his best quotes by giving counter advice which we should all try to follow.

• “He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas”: “They that lie down with dogs will have more serotonin”

• “Look before, or you’ll find yourself behind”: “Look always and let people get in front of you”

• “Well done is better than well said”: “You don’t have to do anything well, but try to be nice”

• “No gains without pains”: “It’s hard to do anything if you don’t feel good; take care of yourself.”

• “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that’s the stuff life is made of.”: “Dost thou love life? Then, Waste time merrily.”

• “Pardoning the bad is injuring the good”: “No one is bad; most of us just do unskillful (dumb) things sometimes.”

• “Never leave that til tomorrow which you can do today”: “It’s okay if you don’t get everything done today.”

• “Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship”: “Give away all your money”