Six of Pentacles

It is easy to mistake the gesture shown on the RWS card as an act of largesse, charity, or unconditional generosity. The presence of the scales is given too little attention here. He is not giving all that he can afford. Rather, he is doing the least that he can do, and giving just barely enough to keep this part of society moving along. He is taking care of business. What these poor souls absolutely need is also what they are best able to receive. There is an economic floor beneath which we might be called less than human. In many places, this is called the poverty line. Maslow would define it as the point below which we do not get our basic survival needs met. Once these basic needs are met, we fortunate beings have more discretion in what we do with ourselves. The aim of the common welfare is to fare well, and a society as a whole cannot do this with poverty dragging whole segments of it down. The costs in health care, childhood adversity, and lack of education are enough to drag the whole civilization down. Elevating ourselves to at least a level where the most basic human needs are met is a wise, long-term investment, perhaps on a par with education in wisdom. To do more than this, however, runs afoul of other principles, like self-determination and personal responsibility. As Nietzsche (TSZ 23) offered: “For this is hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.” So, for the traditional card meanings, some that remain are material success, prosperity, vigilance, philanthropy, opportunity, gift, favor returned, obligations, repayment of debt, responsibility, give and take in balance, patronage, parsimony, safety nets, and investment in the public welfare. This card is not so much about the giver or the doer, but more about what gets given for what gets accomplished. The Six of Pentacles is economy in the original sense, before it meant profligate waste, planned obsolescence, and runaway fiscal policy. Investments are reasoned, measured, and methodical here. We exercise our discretion and prudence. At the same time, no wealth or welfare exists without circulation and its multiplying effects. So we look out here for the perfect compromise, between maximum system stability and its optimum productivity. Resources are apportioned and allocated with vigilance and care. In leaner times we make allowances, budget our outlays, and ration our consump- tion, while still circulating what we can. The Sixes symbolize the formation of coherent systems that begin to self-organize and self-regulate. In the material world of the Pentacles, we begin to see Adam Smith’s invisible hand start to do some of its card tricks. The Pentacles, being of earthly nature, have mass and inertia, and tend to move more slowly than the other elements. The resource and capital outlays that we make here will take some time to manifest their results and returns. There are long games and end games involved here. This is what warrants the measuring and calculation, particularly where resources are limited. With both public welfare and public education, the results might be a full generation away. Some of the long-term costs of our endeavors could be seven generations or seven millennia away. Sometimes it’s a tragedy that all this is entrusted to politicians and others endowed with less than two years worth of vision. This warrants special concern for material equilibrium and a steady-state economic model over a growth-for-growth’s sake model. First we cover what sustains us and keeps us going. First you put on your own oxygen mask, then tend to those you are trying to save. The physician first heals himself. We don’t get extravagant here: it’s a conservative card. Long-term endeavors mean we will be more or less blind to the outcome, relying more heavily on our models and rules of thumb. The profitability of our speculations requires us to store our energy within the environment in the form of long-term investments. We trade the fish we are given for tuition to fishing school. The rewards are postponed and we find that we must buffer our fortunes against the more day-to-day ups and downs. The word invest means to clothe, cloak, cover, or surround, to make your thing wear vestments. We are doing this with our energy here and tying it up in savings. The Yijing counterpart is Gua 36, Brightness Obscured or Darkening of the Light. This is analogous to damping down a wood stove, lowering the flame and banking the coals so the fuel burns more slowly and the fire lasts through the night. Only prior experience, such as history, will suggest what we can expect when morning comes. This too is a regulation of expenditure for longer term ends and objectives. We cover and guard our investments with methods and management practices. We withhold our energy as needed, as the card’s benefactor weighs out his contributions. Several of the Yijing’s lines use the image of covert operations, the cloak of investment, and the dagger of shrewdness. In corrupt times we hold ourselves back for self-preservation, perhaps withdrawing our consent and support, while trying not to martyr ourselves, as we quietly work towards better days that may or may not come, and invest our energies in more distant outcomes.