The Sixth B: Benevolence
Expanding The Five Bs
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
—Leo Tolstoy1
In my Substack Five Bs series, where the five Bs stand for Brains, Bucks, Bodies, Businesses, and Blueprints, I argued that human progress, individual prosperity, and institutional resilience hinge on a careful balance of these five domains. But today, I propose a sixth: Benevolence.
Not the soft benevolence of charity or sentimentality — but the hard, strategic, civilizational kind. Benevolence as policy. Benevolence as national interest. Benevolence as strength. If the Five Bs drive performance, Benevolence prevents sabotage — not just from enemies without, but from shortsightedness within.
“Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes the barrier for your eyes, you cannot see the truth.”
—Bhagwan Rajneesh (1931-90), Indian philosopher and Rolls-Royce fan2
Allow me to speculate a bit.
Imagine: What might Germany have become had it embraced benevolence toward its Jewish citizens — rather than descending into the self-destructive spiral of antisemitism that marked the 19th and 20th centuries?
The history of modern finance, science, and industry is filled with names like Rothschild, Warburg, Einstein, Szilard, Teller, and von Neumann. Many were German-born. Most were Jewish. And nearly all either left Germany, were expelled, or were exterminated.
“The face of tyranny is always mild at first.”
—Jean-Baptiste Racine (1639-99), French dramatist3
In the 19th century, German antisemitism pushed Jewish banking dynasties to safer ground — in particular, London and New York. Germany’s cultural and scientific capital haemorrhaged quietly at first. It wasn’t bombs that did it. It was unwelcomeness and/or hatred/malevolence. Or the lack of benevolence. So the Five Bs (Brains, Bucks, Bodies, Businesses, and Blueprints) left. They set up shop elsewhere. Had Germany embraced its own financial innovators, Frankfurt might have become the financial capital of the 20th century, not New York.
“Sending your child to Gaza is dangerous. But sending your child to Harvard is in a way more dangerous because you will get him back analytically retarded and morally twisted.”
—Dan Schueftan, X, 7 April 2025
The pattern repeated tragically in the 20th century. When Hitler’s regime institutionalised hatred and expelled (or exterminated) some of the finest minds in Europe, they didn’t just murder individuals. They inadvertently exported the Five Bs — and in so doing, rewrote the global order. The misallocation of capital was epic. While Hitler is gone, his self-mutilating antisemitic ideology is carried on by the current rulers of Iran and their useful idiots, for example, the four Hs, i.e., Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Harvard.
“If Harvard wants a tolerant campus, it needs to admit tolerant students.”
—Steven Pinker, X, 2 May 2025
The Manhattan Project is perhaps the clearest example. Many of the scientists who built Fat Man and Little Boy — the very technology that ended WWII and underwrote American hegemony — were German or Austrian Jews. Had Germany extended benevolence instead of malevolence, the centre of 20th-century physics would have remained in Berlin, not moved to Los Alamos.
“Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview – nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.”
—Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), American evolutionary biologist4
Let that sink in: the Third Reich geo-hegemony idea failed due to a lack of benevolence. The good news is that their copycats in Iran will fail for the same reason. Malevolence is self-destructive. Benelovence isn’t. It builds. It grows.
“Europe is belatedly discovering how unbelievably stupid it was to import millions of people from cultures that despise Western values and which often promote hatred toward the people who have let them in.”
—Thomas Sowell5
The great paradox is that Germany didn’t lack intelligence, discipline, or ambition. It lacked civic and socio-economic savviness and generosity of spirit toward a group that had enriched its culture for centuries. It chose exclusion over integration, fear over trust, lies over truth, propaganda over free speech, serfdom over freedom, control over cooperation, and dogma over doubt. The cost was incalculable. Malevolence is a weakness. Benevolence isn’t. It’s a strategic advantage.
“Nice sells.”
—Marc Cuban6
Most readers of this article spend their lives not in the epoch of Pax Germania, but Pax Americana. America, for all its faults, extended a hand to Jewish refugees, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Either they understood the Five Bs, and/or they were benevolent.
This isn’t just about German history. It’s a cautionary tale for any society tempted by nativism, scapegoating, central planning, hypocrisy, or cultural uniformity. The world is more mobile than ever. Talent goes where it’s welcome. Capital follows trust. Genius thrives in freedom. Whether Trump understands the five or six Bs, I will conveniently leave aside for now. Suffice it to say that benevolence is not the first term that comes to mind when assessing the current US administration.
The Five Bs remain foundational. But none of them operate in a vacuum. Without Benevolence, Brains flee, Bucks hide, Bodies rebel, Businesses stagnate, and Blueprints vanish.
Benevolence is the atmosphere in which the Five Bs can breathe.
Trivia:
One winter evening, while gathered around a blazing campfire, an old Sioux Indian chief told his grandson about the inner struggle that goes on inside people. “You see”, said the old man, “this inner struggle is like two wolves fighting each other. One is evil, full of anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, deceit, false pride, superiority, and ego”. “The other one,” he continued, poking the fire with a stick so that the fire crackled, sending the flames clawing at the night sky, “is good, full of joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith”. For a few minutes his grandson pondered his grandfather’s words and then asked, “So which wolf wins, grandfather?” “Well”, said the wise old chief, his lined face breaking into a wry smile, “The one you feed!”7
From “War and Peace,” 1869, Bk. XIV, ch. 18.
Bhagwan Rajneesh, God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth, lecture, Osho International, 1989.
Jean-Baptiste Racine, Britannicus (Paris, 1669).
Probably a paraphrase. The quote reflects Gould's critique of rigid ideological thinking, particularly in science and intellectual discourse. While the exact source is not definitively tied to a single publication, the sentiment aligns with themes in his essays and books.
Thomas Sowell, Random Thoughts, Jewish World Review, 18 August 2015.
Mark Cuban Says Running a Successful Business Really Comes Down to 1 Underrated Skill, Inc., 17 January 2025.
H/t to anonymous.