Diogenes of Sinope, the Greek philosopher who warned about technological capitalism

“The richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.” The popular Spanish saying could have been written by Diogenes of Sinope, the leading figure of Cynic philosophy. Twenty-five centuries later, his ideas remain unsettling because they challenge what people consider necessary and expose how easily habits, objects and routines become supposedly essential parts of life.

“

The money is the ruin of humanity.

Diogenes lived in the Athens of Plato, where some regarded him as a mad Socrates. Like Socrates, he embraced poverty, wandered the streets, used irony as a weapon and left no writings of his own. He also distrusted those who held power and believed that human beings carried within themselves what they needed to achieve virtue.

For Diogenes, virtuous behavior meant rejecting everything not absolutely necessary for existence. His principal commentator, Diogenes Laërtius, wrote that the Cynic argued that things of great value, such as flour used to make bread, had little price, while objects with little practical use, such as a statue, could cost 3,000 drachmas. Diogenes believed his fellow Greeks had become slaves to invented needs and had moved away from happiness based on self-sufficiency and minimal dependence on material goods.

“

Spiderwebs that trap the weak and let the strong escape.

Laërtius also wrote that Diogenes “proclaimed that the gods had given human beings an easy life, but that they had forgotten it in their pursuit of delicacies.” Consistent with that doctrine, Diogenes reportedly owned no wealth or property. A jar provided enough shelter from the elements. He rejected the city’s laws as “spiderwebs that trap the weak and let the strong escape” and considered himself a citizen of the world.

“

A child has surpassed me in simplicity.

Known as “the Dog” because he lived in the streets and survived on what he found, Diogenes proudly reclaimed the insult. His few possessions included a cloak, a staff, a lamp and a bag containing a bowl and a cup. Laërtius said he later discarded both vessels after seeing children drink with their hands. “A child has surpassed me in simplicity,” he reportedly said. The article presents these stories as an ancient challenge to modern assumptions about consumption, data capitalism and a culture built around constant performance.

“

The gods had given human beings an easy life, but that they had forgotten it in their pursuit of delicacies.