L'insuffisance de la richesse
Boethius’s dialectical argument (Book III): wealth, far from eliminating need, increases it and never makes its possessor self-sufficient. When questioned about his past treasures, Boethius admits he never knew a day without desire or sorrow—proof that the rich still lack, and thus do not suffice for themselves. Worse still: wealth itself exposes one to an added need, that of protection against those who would seize it.
Donc la richesse ne peut faire qu’un homme n’ait besoin de rien et se suffise à lui-même ; c’est pourtant ce qu’elle paraissait promettre.
Philosophy does not refute wealth in general: it questions Boèce about his own. Surrounded by all his past treasures, had he ever known a single day without sorrow? Boèce admits he had not. His pain always sprang from the same source: the desire to see present what was absent, or absent what was present. Now, desire is a need—and whoever needs lacks self-sufficiency. The conclusion follows naturally: “Thus wealth cannot make a man want for nothing and be self-sufficient; yet that is precisely what it seemed to promise.”
A second argument seals the demonstration. Far from eliminating need, abundance creates a new one: the need to protect. The rich man requires “protection borrowed from without” to safeguard what anyone might seize by force or cunning—the lawsuits filling the courts have no other origin. The situation reverses: the man thought freed from all need in fact depends on the assistance of others. And money, however plentiful, cannot stave off hunger, thirst, or cold—it makes need more bearable, but never erases it. Elsewhere in the same book, Boèce generalizes the observation: needs grow in proportion to wealth, while they shrink to almost nothing for those who measure them by nature rather than the insatiability of desire.
This twofold demonstration isolates just one of the “false goods” collectively named by the sovereign good. Boèce does not merely rank wealth among Fortune’s five idols: he shows, case by case, why this one in particular fails to deliver on its promise of sufficiency.
≠ sovereign good: this term names the common error of the five false goods—mistaking them for the whole when they are but fragments. This entry deals only with one fragment, wealth, and the specific argument that refutes it. ≠ autarkeia: Epicurean self-sufficiency is an inward disposition, achieved by limiting desire. Here, Boèce demonstrates the opposite—that wealth, by nature an external good, produces no such self-sufficiency at any quantity, since it always generates yet another need: the need to protect itself.