Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

Desire/Greed, Necessity/Need

The Ten Thousand Things

In his writings, Jean Rousseau (1712-1778) speaks of the happiness of the family when it is independent and untethered to the rest of society. A family can subsist within itself, providing enough food and clothing and shelter for its small number of members. However, once mass production begins to provide everything and takes away the responsibility of providing for himself from man, he has the leisure time to dream about all the many things he wants and suddenly realizes he needs.

In 1840, Jeremy Taylor writes that the status we miscall poverty is actually more appropriately defined as nature. Nature metes out to all men the proportion of possessions he needs. The poor man feels fortunate when he receives the discarded clothes of the rich man who thinks the clothing is too old and...