Polidori – On the Containment of Greed – 063

My dear Byron, and assembled conspirators,

Greed, you say, is to be my assigned vice — as though I were some banker, merchant prince, or Venetian senator! Still, I accept the role with a physician’s curiosity, for greed is nothing more than a disease of appetite, one that inflames the palate until no feast can sate it.

In the spirit of Swift, I therefore propose the following:

We shall contain greed in the same manner one contains contagion — by physical quarantine. I suggest that any citizen who has accumulated wealth or possessions beyond a certain measure (to be set by the most envious among us) be removed to an island designed for the purpose. Here, in splendid isolation, they may continue their hoarding, competing only against others of their kind, until their vaults burst and their treasures spill uselessly into the sea.

The islands shall be well supplied with mirrors — for the greedy man loves nothing so much as the sight of himself surrounded by his gains — but no ships, for fear they might return. They will have no coinage, for they may trade only in their possessions, and thus may experience the exquisite torment of discovering that no one wants what they most desire to sell.

Meanwhile, their abandoned wealth will be redistributed among those who actually intend to use it — artisans, scholars, builders, and dreamers — who will, perhaps, create something of lasting worth. The greedy will be spoken of in the past tense, like an extinct species of bird, notable only for the gaudy plumage it could never quite moult.

I offer this proposal in jest, though I cannot help but think the world might be improved if it were enacted.

Yours with a physician’s detachment,

— Polidori