Power, Wealth and Fame

I listened to a book on CD last week entitled 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. It provided 48 laws (actually conflicting pieces of advice) on how to become powerful or more powerful. It was worth listening to and most of the advice was fairly sound although it would still take a fair amount of thought and reflection to apply it to the greatest advantage. Many of the reviews of the book on Amazon were offended by the Machiavellian tone of the book and this got me to thinking about power and related goals such as wealth or fame.

Aristotle said that happiness is the only goal that we seek as an end in itself. We want to be happy simply because we want to be happy. However, other goals, such as power, wealth or fame, we want because we think they will make us happy. I think the thing that offended the reviewers on Amazon was that this book provided rules to make yourself more powerful without asking if you wanted to be powerful, how much power you really wanted or whether you wanted to pursue power as an end in itself.

We actually know a fair amount about how to achieve power, wealth and fame. The problem is that most people are unwilling to do what it takes to achieve them. Why is that? I think the problem is that these are not end goals in themselves. They are sub goals in the pursuit of happiness. If we have to do something that makes us unhappy in the pursuit of happiness then we have defeated our attempts. But, let us say for the sake of argument that we can pursue these goals without doing anything unpleasant. Is there still a problem?

Yes, there is. The problem is conversion. Money itselfs does not make one happy. It is the things one can do with money that increases happiness. Power does not make one happy. Again it is the things one can do with power that may increase their happiness. If one acquires a large amount of money, power or fame and has not figured out how to convert them into happiness then the whole exercise has been pointless. There is nothing inherently wrong with the pursuit of power, wealth or fame as long as it is done in the context of a meaningful and satisfying life.