Benjamin Franklin Warning About Money Still Hits Home Today

The founding fathers were a famously wealthy group. Some, like Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton, came up through the colonial ranks with little, while others were born directly into fabulous riches. Robert Morris, for example, was one of the richest men in the Americas during the revolution and personally financed significant swaths of the American war effort. Meanwhile, Time reports Benjamin Franklin eventually became the owner of a full 89 rental properties, completing a meteoric arc of wealth accumulation as he cemented his name in the history books. Yet, Franklin sought to remain down to earth, even as he built fame and fortune for himself. Famously, he once said, "Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has, the more one wants."

While the yearly earnings of even a lower-class worker today would probably shock someone used to how far a dollar went in the 18th century, Franklin's words remain salient. The power of this idea may be rooted in the fact that Franklin knew both the depths of lower-class economic life and extreme poverty for decades before coming into wealth or power. Of course, it's easier to decry the negative influence of money when you have more than you need, but this mentality can help put things into perspective and give modern workers overtaxed in their working lives some much-needed clarity.

Keeping the notion that money can't buy your happiness close to the heart is valuable for many reasons. More recently, we spoke with a personal finance expert that warned against measuring profit in dollars, much like Benjamin Franklin's refrain. Keeping up with the Joneses is a great way to find yourself in a financial hole, constantly chasing after more. 

This can be seen on a personal level, and in the fact that the billionaire class has nearly doubled in size and more than doubled its wealth over the last decade. In the markets, investors are worried about the potential for AI to become the next stock bubble to burst after a wildly rapid accumulation phase. Meanwhile, inflation has continued to raise the prices of many things Americans need while wages have stagnated, placing personal finance in a pressure cooker on a decades-long simmer.

Chasing after more dollars and things creates an endless cycle of desire. Sources of wisdom from across the social spectrum suggest that desire and greed are adept drivers of negative spirals. Benjamin Franklin's words suggest that those chasing more financial attainment may ultimately have trouble turning the faucet of ambition off. In the modern world, these habits are only enabled by the speed of the internet. Having the ability to take a step back and assess what really matters to you is an important and powerful tool that adds dynamic value to your life.