Sunday, May 31, 2009

As I See It, by J. Paul Getty

I'm not a big fan of biographies, nor do I lust after pearls of wisdom from the world's billionaires. So I approached this book with trepidation. Still, it was a gift, and I needed a book for a flight, so I took it with me. The flight time passed effortlessly (although I didn't finish it until today); this is an excellent autobiography!

Mr. Getty clearly worked very hard for his success. His views on the impact of government tax and spend initiatives on the public good, written here in the early 1970s, appear, unfortunately, to be quite accurate.

Mr. Getty opened and closed his autobiography with a (mis-)quote from Abe Lincoln. My brief research fails to find an adequate citation for attribution to Lincoln; it seems that President Reagan may have first originated this to Lincoln. Possibly the actual author was William J. H. Boetcker, a minister who published this in 1942. My only complaint: certainly Getty of all people could afford a research librarian for his book!

Still though, the quote is wonderful and bears repeating here:

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.
You cannot further the Brotherhood of Man by encouraging class hatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Forgive the political note: don't all of these, whether written in 1942 or in the 1800s, describe what the current Administration and Congress (like others before them) are most energetically attempting to do?