47 pages • 1 hour read
George Samuel ClasonThe Richest Man in Babylon
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1926A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Five Laws of Gold”
Clason introduces a new character, Kalabab, who shares his wisdom with his group of workers who helped him lead his camels across the desert and protected him from robbers. Kalabab informs the men that he will tell them Arkad’s advice, which the men are eager to hear since Arkad is renowned as the richest man who ever lived in Babylon. (Arkad’s son, Nomasir, told Kalabab this story and passed along his father’s wisdom, too.)
Kalabab relates to his listeners that Arkad did not want Nomasir to inherit his estate without first building financial skills, so he instructed Nomasir to “go out into the world and show thy ability both to acquire gold and to make thyself respected among men” (47). Arkad gave Nomasir a bag of gold and a clay tablet that contained “The Five Laws of Gold” as a reminder for his son (47). Arkad told Nomasir to return in 10 years and inform him about his success. He warned Nomasir that if he fails, he may lose his inheritance.
Ten years pass, and Nomasir returns with his own family to visit his father, where he is welcomed with a dinner. He stands to tell his story, confessing that he quickly lost the gold his father had given him due to his own “disastrous handling,” including betting on horse racing (48). He then learned that he had been the victim of a betting scam. He also made a poor investment with a lazy businessman which furthered his losses. Nomasir sold his clothes and his slave in order to survive. Finally, he carefully read “The Five Laws of Gold” that his father had given him and decided to follow each one. Nomasir describes these five laws, which include saving 10% of your earnings, investing money profitably and cautiously, never investing with unreputable people, and avoiding “tricksters” who promise “impossible earnings” (50).
Nomasir returns to his story, admitting to the “poverty and despair” he experienced due to his lack of financial skills (50). He shares that he found a job in Nineveh supervising enslaved people and always saved a part of his income, determined to earn back the money he had lost. When a colleague of his recommended investing in metal mining, Nomasir was confident in his knowledge and did so. Because he invested wisely, he was able to make a profit. Over the years, Nomasir continued to save and make wise investments. Finally, Nomasir gifts his father bags of gold, sharing that he considers his father’s wisdom “of much greater value” than the wealth he has managed to make (51).
Kalabab asks his listeners to consider the lessons in Nomasir’s story. He reiterates that some people being wealthy while others are poor is not an “inconsistency of fate” but a result of different levels of financial knowledge (52). He again details the “five laws” and urges the group to abide by them if they want to be successful.
Chapter 6 Analysis
In this chapter, Clason uses vivid descriptive language to engage the reader and bring ancient Babylon to life. The author describes Kalabab’s “faded tents” with “neatly stacked bales of merchandise covered with skins” (46). He invites the reader to imagine the group’s camels “sprawled in the sand, some chewing their cuds contentedly, others snoring in hoarse discord” (46). He also paints a picture of Nomasir’s important family dinner, imagining that the home was “hazy with smoke from the wicks of the oil lamps that but dimly lighted it” with “long-stemmed palm leaves” for fans (47). The author chooses his language carefully to leave an impression on the reader. By calling this chapter’s suggestions “laws,” Clason implies that his recommendations are timeless and universal and are not dependent on different cultural or individual contexts. This lack of nuance may prompt the modern reader to question the legitimacy and applicability of Clason’s claims.
Clason continues to write from an apolitical perspective. He presents poverty as negative, and wealth as positive, regardless of how that wealth was earned. Clason’s character finds work managing enslaved people, a profession that Clason presents as unproblematic. By again mentioning enslaved people, Clason undermines his assessment that most Babylonians are wealthy as a result of their own unassisted hard work, as well as his narrators’ claims that all men in Babylon are equally able to save money and thrive. Steering clear of moralizing the acquisition of wealth, Clason focuses the reader’s attention only on his “Five Laws of Gold,” most of which he has already introduced in previous chapters. This repetition makes this parable somewhat redundant, but repetition is one of Clason’s techniques to ensure that the reader internalizes his advice. Additionally, Nomasir’s life story echoes that of his father, Arkad, who overcame obstacles and poor investments on his road to success. The parallels in these stories make this parable feel repetitive but emphasize Clason’s theme about Youthful Inexperience in Finance and each individual’s need to overcome naïve ty and reckless spending and learn financial wisdom the hard way.
In Chapter 6, Clason continues to focus solely on male characters and emphasizes the patriarchal structures, which, according to Clason, informed how wealth was generated and passed down in ancient Babylon. Clason continues to use masculine language when communicating his advice, such as that “Gold cometh gladly…to any man” and “Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings” (49). By only referencing men in his parables, Clason creates a narrow and inaccurate view of Babylonian society in which women were never involved in the creation of wealth through trade, employment, dowries, or inheritance. Chapter 2 of Women’s Writing of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Anthology of the Earliest Female Authors (UP Cambridge 2017) describes the various social and professional roles that women held:
Mesopotamian evidence suggests that elite women acted in all the roles that men did, although considerably fewer women than men appear in writing from Mesopotamia. Women corresponded with men, with the king, with each other, bought, sold, loaned, borrowed, guaranteed debts and acted as witnesses, owned property, were involved in trading ventures, used seals, etc. (24)
Women from lower social classes likewise contributed significantly to the Sumerian economy:
In the early Sumerian institutions, […] women formed a large work-force for physically demanding labor. They worked as weavers, ground flour, towed boats, and cut reeds. Apparently they received for their work half of the rations given to male workers. Women are also known to have worked as midwives, nurses, and tavern keepers. (19)
This research proves that Clason’s descriptions of Babylon are more based on his early 20th-century American biases about the role of women in the business world (i.e., that they are not or should not be part of it), than on historical accuracy. Just as importantly, his male-centric text assumes that the readers of his day are men, most likely young men, like Arkad’s students, who are looking for advice in wealth-building.
