In Chap­ter V of “The Plan­et Mars and Its Inhab­i­tants,” the author expounds on the Mar­t­ian phi­los­o­phy regard­ing prop­er­ty and wealth, fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from Earth­’s per­spec­tives. Mar­tians view all prop­er­ty as belong­ing to God, meant for the col­lec­tive com­fort and devel­op­ment of His cre­ations rather than for indi­vid­ual own­er­ship. This ethos influ­ences the Mar­t­ian approach to mate­r­i­al pos­ses­sions, empha­siz­ing that true wealth lies in under­stand­ing and close­ness to God, rather than in mate­r­i­al accu­mu­la­tion.

Mar­tians believe that upon death, only one’s char­ac­ter per­sists, deem­ing mate­r­i­al pur­suits ulti­mate­ly futile. Con­se­quent­ly, they regard mate­r­i­al wealth as mere­ly tem­po­rary tools for spir­i­tu­al growth, not as ends. The text cri­tiques Earth­ly notions of wealth, par­tic­u­lar­ly the accu­mu­la­tion and hoard­ing of mon­ey and prop­er­ty. On Mars, wealth is seen not as tokens of per­son­al suc­cess but as resources meant for the col­lec­tive good.

The chap­ter fur­ther dis­cuss­es the Earth­ly mis­con­cep­tions sur­round­ing wealth, empha­siz­ing the spir­i­tu­al empti­ness of hoard­ing and the moral oblig­a­tion to share God’s gifts. It cri­tiques Earth­’s soci­etal struc­tures, like the caste sys­tem and eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties, as devi­a­tions from divine inten­tions. The nar­ra­tive sug­gests that Earth­’s social injus­tices stem from mis­guid­ed beliefs in divine favoritism and the divine right to own­er­ship, which have led to wide­spread mis­ery and inequal­i­ty.

Through a didac­tic tone, the author presents a vision of soci­ety where wealth and prop­er­ty are com­mu­nal, advo­cat­ing for a sys­tem that mir­rors Mars’ ethos of col­lec­tive ben­e­fit and spir­i­tu­al wealth over mate­r­i­al accu­mu­la­tion. The chap­ter implies that Earth­’s pro­gres­sion towards a more equi­table soci­ety requires a rad­i­cal realign­ment of soci­etal val­ues towards self­less­ness, com­mu­ni­ty wel­fare, and spir­i­tu­al enlight­en­ment, dis­miss­ing the greed and self­ish­ness that cur­rent­ly dom­i­nate.

The nar­ra­tive con­trasts Mar­t­ian and Earth­ly val­ues, por­tray­ing Mars as a utopi­an soci­ety ground­ed in spir­i­tu­al prin­ci­ples that Earth might do well to emu­late. It calls for a rejec­tion of mate­ri­al­ism and a return to a more com­mu­nal, spir­i­tu­al­ly enriched way of liv­ing, sug­gest­ing that such a trans­for­ma­tion could lead to a har­mo­nious exis­tence rem­i­nis­cent of a bygone gold­en age of spir­i­tu­al com­mu­nion between human­i­ty and the divine.