It's a word! I didn't make it up. Google has two entries, other than mine. One is a book that was published in 2007 by a fellow, Adrain J. Walsh, who seems to be a philosopher. The book is entitled, Ethics, Money and Sport:This Sporting Mammon. It's mentioned in contrast to lucrepath, a person driven by avarice, which suggests that the lucrephile has some side issue, other than simple greed.
The other cite comes from a blog in New Zealand where lucrephilic politicians are popping up, as well.
Are lucrephilic politicians just in it for the money and the stimulation having it brings them? Are they like bank robbers who rob banks "'cause that's where the money is"? Do we now have politicians who run for public office because "that's where the money is"?
Is "money for nothing" what they're after?
So, which is it with Willard Romney? Is he a lucrephile or a lucrepath?
Thorstein Veblen made a name for himself inveighing against what he called "conspicuous consumption" -- i.e. people making a show of their wealth in public, presumably because they wanted to be admired and envied by their poor neighbors.
But, after giving it some thought, it occurred to me that Veblen's ire was misdirected.
"Consumption," perhaps because of its long association with a wasting disease that debilitates humans long before it kills them, has a negative connotation and seems to have served moralizing economists well in denigrating "consumers" so producers would seem more important in the social hierarchy they can't seem to escape. Never mind that without people to use what they make, producers would be drowning in waste.
"Consumption" as an economic process is unfairly despised. Consumption does not, in fact, destroy. Humans use resources, both natural and man-made, to create and recreate themselves. Nothing is destroyed or lost. Thinking that it is is the result of a wrong perspective. Moralizing economists just aren't seeing things right.
Certainly, Veblen didn't. Not only was he wrong about consumption, but, if he were right about its destructive nature, just using up with one's eyes (conspicuous) -- i.e. people looking at pretty artifacts and splendid estates -- doesn't diminish either their value or their essence one bit. There's a reason we teach our children to "look, don't touch." Observation doesn't hurt, while admiration enhances both the observer and the observed.
But, it is a matter of perspective. When Veblen considered "conspicuous consumption," he imputed the intent of a person who'd acquired some good "for show," to make himself seem more important in the eyes of the world. Veblen ignored the perspective of the observer. Or, perhaps, he assumed, like Willard Romney, that evidence of wealth generates envy, a negative emotion with which lucrephiles are, apparently, quite familiar. That most people are able, not only to look without touching, but to look without wanting, simply didn't register with Veblen and doesn't with the great Romney.
I'm reminded of my mother, whose self-centered myopia eluded me for the longest time. "I do not know what people want," was one of her constant refrains. That some people don't want did not register with her. It was not something she could believe.
Perhaps Willard' slogan "Believe in America" is unintentionally ironic. Willard himself seems to believe in nothing. Which may be why, as a lucrephile, Willard is like the great Gatsby in love with a figment of the imagination -- money.