The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

HOARDING AS A FORM OF WASTE
It is interesting to note that Dante’s Inferno assigns a place to those who 
hoard things as well as waste them, and Ford depicts both practices as 
aspects of the same economic sin of misuse. An idle or unused asset is 
little better than one whose owner squanders it.
* * *
The cure of poverty is not in personal economy but in better production. The 
“thrift” and “economy” ideas have been overworked. The word “economy” 
represents a fear. The great and tragic fact of waste is impressed on a mind 
by some circumstance, usually of a most materialistic kind. There comes a 

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170  •  The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work
violent reaction against extravagance—the mind catches hold of the idea of 
“economy.” But it only flies from a greater to a lesser evil; it does not make the 
full journey from error to truth.
Economy is the rule of half-alive minds. There can be no doubt that it is 
better than waste; neither can there be any doubt that it is not as good as use. 
People who pride themselves on their economy take it as a virtue. But what 
is more pitiable than a poor, pinched mind spending the rich days and years 
clutching a few bits of metal? What can be fine about paring the necessities of 
life to the very quick? We all know “economical people” who seem to be nig-
gardly even about the amount of air they breathe and the amount of appreci-
ation they will allow themselves to give to anything. They shrivel—body and 
soul. Economy is waste: it is waste of the juices of life, the sap of living. For 
there are two kinds of waste—that of the prodigal who throws his substance 
away in riotous living, and that of the sluggard who allows his substance to 
rot from non-use. The rigid economizer is in danger of being classed with the 
sluggard. Extravagance is usually a reaction from suppression of expendi-
ture. Economy is likely to be a reaction from extravagance.
Everything was given us to use. There is no evil from which we suffer that 
did not come about through misuse. The worst sin we can commit against the 
things of our common life is to misuse them. “Misuse” is the wider term. We 
like to say “waste,” but waste is only one phase of misuse. All waste is misuse; 
all misuse is waste.
It is possible even to overemphasize the saving habit. It is proper and desir-
able that everyone have a margin; it is really wasteful not to have one—if 
you can have one. But it can be overdone. We teach children to save their 
money. As an attempt to counteract thoughtless and selfish expenditure, that 
has a value. But it is not positive; it does not lead the child out into the safe 
and useful avenues of self-expression or self-expenditure. To teach a child to 
invest and use is better than to teach him to save. Most men who are labori-
ously saving a few dollars would do better to invest those few dollars—first in 
themselves, and then in some useful work. Eventually they would have more 
to save. Young men ought to invest rather than save. They ought to invest 
in themselves to increase creative value; after they have taken themselves to 
the peak of usefulness, then will be time enough to think of laying aside, as 
a fixed policy, a certain substantial share of income. You are not “saving” 
when you prevent yourself from becoming more productive. You are really 
taking away from your ultimate capital; you are reducing the value of one of 
nature’s investments. The principle of use is the true guide. Use is positive, 
active, life-giving. Use is alive. Use adds to the sum of good.
Personal want may be avoided without changing the general condition. 
Wage increases, price increases, profit increases, other kinds of increases 
designed to bring more money here or money there, are only attempts of this 

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Why Be Poor?  •  171
or that class to get out of the fire—regardless of what may happen to everyone 
else. There is a foolish belief that if only the money can be gotten, somehow 
the storm can be weathered. Labour believes that if it can get more wages, it 
can weather the storm. Capital thinks that if it can get more profits, it can 
weather the storm. There is a pathetic faith in what money can do. Money is 
very useful in normal times, but money has no more value than the people 
put into it by production, and it can be so misused. It can be so superstitiously 
worshipped as a substitute for real wealth as to destroy its value altogether.