You've bravely addressed this theme in a prior post, and it was one of my inspirations to address it myself.
Because class and wealth are such sensitive subjects, there is a huge disconnect between how seldom we write about them and how profoundly they influence our lives.
Perhaps they are sensitive subjects (not sure about that) but they are wildly inflated in importance, largely due to media. I'd much rather spend time with someone whom I respected regardless of financial status than one whom I do not, also regardless of financial status.
I’m in the UK so can’t comment on how things are in the US but you’ve got me thinking a lot about how I feel about the rich here. My feelings are very nuanced because being ‘rich’ means so many things but I find the elitist arrogance with which some of our most senior politicians conduct themselves to be highly infuriating. And it shocks me that some people can’t see this and still want to emulate.
Thanks Hannah for the comment, which made me wonder whether the "Venn Diagram" intersection of the people we consider both "rich" and "elite" has grown or shrunk over time. Your current Prime Minister is clearly both!
Elite once suggested a level of quality. One could be an elite writer, doctor, carpenter or athlete. Elite is a grossly misused word, now mostly lacking any real meaning and those who consider themselves to be elite in the public eye are, in my thinking, not elite at all.
First, I already liked you and your writing, but now that I know you are a fan of Carson and Bates, I like you more. Mrs Patmore, Mrs Hughes, and Anna, maybe even Lady Edith, are my heroes.
Second, love all the insights and history you've packed into this. In 5 minutes I've learned a wealth of knowledge. 😉
Third, since watching DA, I want a valet for practical purposes. The older I get the harder it is to situate one shirt inside another.
Finally, wealth is relative? Yes there are hard numbers. Just like "hardships", how you feel your wealth is relative to you. It's a mushy argument, bur another way perhaps the class conformity has evolved.
Important discussion to keep having..Americans tend to perceive their choices and social world through the filter of individualism and downplay the role of group-behavior outside of narrow recreational worlds. Income is dead as a clear predictor of behavior in social science. But, combinations of education and income can predict things like zip code, etc. Autonomy to break class rules has made all of this much messier...except at the extremes of poverty and wealth. I think a lot of journalists confuse the 1% with the upper middle class again and again. Again, Americans are just bad at social analysis, since we prefer to see individuals and personalities sloshing about in a cultural mosh pit of opportunity. Note: almost no one in the mosh pit ever winds up on stage, they just go home sweaty and groped.
I like this, David, and it’s an interesting question - I casually talk about the “rich,” but that’s always relative. I think we can and should talk about economic class in the U.S., but in terms of power, I’d say that really comes down to privilege and control of key resources - such as the media and tech platforms. That’s where the real power lies, and while it’s tied to wealth, it keeps claiming to be be just like the rest of us.
Egregious consumption among the tech upper crust happens out of sight, so it doesn’t seem conspicuous - but the consuming of too many public resources is happening, especially in places like San Francisco. These are the people who talk in very loud voices in fancy restaurants wearing sweatshirts (I’ve seen it happen). They yell at waiters and step over unhoused people lying on the street. They try to control every conversation, and are not leisurely in their approach at all.
I sometimes think that the real problem and challenge of wealth comes in lack of empathy for those who struggle. You either forget your own struggles to make ends meet or you have no idea what it’s like because you grew up with money. When you’re insensitive in this way it has a chilling effect on society and what everyone can aspire to - and that’s the chill I feel now with the rise of the techno- plutocracy.
Thanks for the comment, Martha. I don't experience the sort of entitled behavior you describe in SF in Manhattan, but have seen it in the Hamptons.
It may have to do with the immaturity of the wealthy and entitled in SF.
The lack of empathy is an issue one can choose to ignore or contend with. If you haven't experienced what it's like to struggle financially––and I fit that category––I don't think you can ever achieve true empathy for those who are impoverished..
But what you can do is try to educate yourself by reading about and speaking to people who do have that empathetic experience, which can help you get a little closer to imagining what it might be like. And of course do what you can to help.
Self-awareness of limitations and strengths is what matters, David, and you express that admirably. For me, empathy and compassion are a daily practice, not static qualities - and I fail my own standards all the time. But acknowledging that others come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives is my starting point - yours, too, I bet.
I think the difference between the wealthy and the rest of the population is missing in here and should be noted. What work feels like vs what making money feels like. You glossed over the fact that the wealthy are free. They dabble in their interests, grow their curiosity and invest in their intuition and consciousness.
I am busy all the time and I love it. But it is at my direction. I don't have people dressing me or cleaning my house. But I do have several roombas and kids who homeschool. We all pitch in and there is very little "work" because we share it.
My life is mine to determine what I want to do with it. I have an immense freedom and people literally can't fathom what this is. I grew up in poverty and for awhile was a single parent. I worked for others and that is very different. The stress of being on others schedules is captivity. It is slavery. We still have slavery for everyone but the wealthy. Someone else owns your time. Someone else dictates what your outputs are and focus is.Your life is focused on serving up.
Our education system sets this mindset and women have the easiest time breaking free thanks to children. I had high needs children and I had to look at the future for them and realize the cost of we did not figure out how to teach them to make their own way. The deprogramming that must be done to learn to make your own path and life takes average people a decade to undo. This is why schooling is required at 5. They start you in others schedules that young. It is not to educate. We all learn naturally. Especially today with the abundance of information.
I work with profoundly gifted creatives. I help them deprogram from the system so they can find their creative genius. The most intelligent die under the schedule of others. They turn on themselves like a wild animal does when brought into captivity. We pathologize this as autism or ADHD. Really it is the schedules we maintain which are simply to much for someone whose IQ is above 150. Their higher taking in of inputs makes them crazy if they can't process them all and understand. This is why we cap the testing of IQ at 145.
This is the difference between being wealthy and not. It is owning your own thoughts. It is creating your work on what interests you. It is living at the pace you want or can live.
We exault the wealthy. We think they are super human. They are not. They destroy the people with extreme talent and make us put them in there. Steve Jobs was profoundly gifted with autism and it killed him working so much. His anger outbursts are all normal for ASD people with too much on their plate. You will find the most amazing people die young from their schedule being too much. They die of cancer, ALS, in my case epilepsy almost did me in. Anything neurological can be added here as well as all the chronic illnesses. This is why the PG creatives die young. This is why you have to go outside the system to find out if you are one.
The wealthy may "work" a lot but they live lives without the toxic stress of being under the thumb of others or the system. They take many vacations, they sleep enough. They decide what they will do each day.
They enslave rest of the population and destroy the sustainable model we should have moved to or stayed at to main healthy ecology just to maintain their wealth.
Ah yes, Lillian, love this. The rich have rigged our political systems and work environments to institutionalize trickle up economics. They have us working to keep them where they are. They have stolen our time and ability to direct our own lives and build communities. To take those back is a revolutionary act.
I set out in this essay to look out Veblen's theory of how the wealthy behaved circa 1900 and compare it to how they behave today. I didn't have room to consider the gulf between the wealthy and the rest. At least not in this post!
You make a lot of interesting points about freedom and how people like Steve Jobs have a workaholics disease. "You will find the most amazing people die young from their schedule being too much. "
I really appreciate your analysis. Thanks for giving me a lot to think about, which is likely to show up in a future post!
Thank you for engaging and contributing significantly to the discourse.
I think that every group, however it's members are selected, will have a number of good and evil souls, stingy and generous, kind and cruel and so on. All these characteristics are matters of character and heart, having nothing to do with wealth, nature of one's employment, geographic location, etc. I have met lawyers whom I trust and do not. I have met carpenters I'd welcome in my home and not. In every group, this mix will exist because the grouping does not determine or result from such traits. Even among the clergy, some are of better heart and intent than others.
Due to some friends at PBS I got to go for free to one of the Downton Abbey press junkets with the cast and also the interactive exhibition with costumes and sets and so forth. The latter was a guided tour hosted by virtual Carson, it was a hoot and a shame that footage hasn't otherwise been released in some form.
The deep poverty in America is inexcusable for a country as wealthy as ours. An eye-opening book for me was $2 Per Day, which discusses the welfare reforms under Clinton and how those reforms and other government policies and failures of policies have impacted the deeply poor in urban, suburban, and rural environments.
It's why I so value the work that the Robin Hood Foundation does.
Clinton did what he had to do. this happens with presidents on both sides of the aisle.
I studied poverty policy a few years ago when working on my B.A. Poverty policy is designed to funnel the money, allocated for those living in poverty, through various government agencies and non profits before it even gets to the folks who need it.
Imagine if we empowered people who need to get out of poverty, by directly helping them rather than sending them all over hell and back to get the assistance they need. We saw a sampling of how that could work with the pandemic grants that the federal government sent out to singles and families.
I've lived in deep poverty more than once in my life, as a single mother during the Clinton era, and now as a senior, reliant solely on a piddling amount of Social Security monthly, and other "benefits" that never cover enough.
Really interesting post David. I hadn’t thought to interrogate the “luxury beliefs” argument, but you’re right that it doesn’t stand up. Maybe the way to understand all this is really macro conceptions of identity. Veblen was dealing with a model of wealth that was primarily aristocratic, about handed-down wealth - so work would be viewed as a sign of not being truly wealthy. Our “meritocratic” system means treating work as a necessary gateway to wealth, so much of our conspicuous consumption is actually about showing how hard you work.
Important to keep in mind that Veblen was writing in a period of enormous income inequality in which the general population had no recourse. In the Panic of 1907, Pierpont Morgan bailed out the United States as an individual. Income tax was still six years away. Hereditary aristocracies still ruled in virtually every country in Europe and the financial aristocracy ruled in the US. In other words, the wealthy had little or nothing to fear from ordinary people. That was soon to change. We underestimate the impact of World War I on the ruling class, as well as art and culture, but when it was done, previously powerless segments of society had become a force to deal with. (Russia scared the willies out of everyone else, but Italy, Germany, Austria, etc.--even the UK--had upheavals of their own.) These new power groups have grown in size and sophistication. As such, the willingness of the super rich to flaunt their wealth and thereby become targets has diminished. Some still do, but most, if their names get in the news at all--Harlan Crow, Richard Uihlein, for example--evoke a "Who's that?" I would postulate that within their circle, their consumption is every bit as conspicuous, but they make a much more concerted effort to keep a low profile with the general public.
Haha. True. But Crow, naive as it may have been, never expected to have his name become public and thus available for the next Bond film. (Scenes we'd like to see.) And yes, WWI had a much greater impact on social structure than WWII. On science/engineering as well, the A bomb notwithstanding. It was the first time, in a serious way, for tanks, airplanes, submarines, mechanized transport, and a lot more. Forced a total rethinking of both tactics and defense as well as prompting the targeted killing of masses of civilians, mostly by Germany, rather than just as collateral damage.
I honestly don’t know where I land on this yet...I’m going to have to keep thinking. But you’re doing a good job of convincing me to give downton a try!!
Great essay as usual David! - I also agree that Veblen is dead, and Rob Henderson's argument is flawed. The trouble with all these types of "poll-based" and "index" or "coefficient" based arguments in economics and politics is that the flaws in the data are so glaring that it's hard to make a conclusion from any of them. Working more from first principles (as you have done) is sometimes a better strategy.
I am wealthy. I have no doubt about that, but I measure my wealth by the family and friends in my life and am therefore as wealthy as anyone.
You've bravely addressed this theme in a prior post, and it was one of my inspirations to address it myself.
Because class and wealth are such sensitive subjects, there is a huge disconnect between how seldom we write about them and how profoundly they influence our lives.
Perhaps they are sensitive subjects (not sure about that) but they are wildly inflated in importance, largely due to media. I'd much rather spend time with someone whom I respected regardless of financial status than one whom I do not, also regardless of financial status.
This was an interesting read. Thanks David.
I’m in the UK so can’t comment on how things are in the US but you’ve got me thinking a lot about how I feel about the rich here. My feelings are very nuanced because being ‘rich’ means so many things but I find the elitist arrogance with which some of our most senior politicians conduct themselves to be highly infuriating. And it shocks me that some people can’t see this and still want to emulate.
Thanks Hannah for the comment, which made me wonder whether the "Venn Diagram" intersection of the people we consider both "rich" and "elite" has grown or shrunk over time. Your current Prime Minister is clearly both!
And much of his cabinet!
Elite once suggested a level of quality. One could be an elite writer, doctor, carpenter or athlete. Elite is a grossly misused word, now mostly lacking any real meaning and those who consider themselves to be elite in the public eye are, in my thinking, not elite at all.
First, I already liked you and your writing, but now that I know you are a fan of Carson and Bates, I like you more. Mrs Patmore, Mrs Hughes, and Anna, maybe even Lady Edith, are my heroes.
Second, love all the insights and history you've packed into this. In 5 minutes I've learned a wealth of knowledge. 😉
Third, since watching DA, I want a valet for practical purposes. The older I get the harder it is to situate one shirt inside another.
Finally, wealth is relative? Yes there are hard numbers. Just like "hardships", how you feel your wealth is relative to you. It's a mushy argument, bur another way perhaps the class conformity has evolved.
Thanks Wendy. Wealth is definitely relative, and you can feel poor or wealthy based on who you interact with.
My wife does help me get dressed on the rare occasions I wear black tie. She can't stand to watch my fumbling fingers.
Important discussion to keep having..Americans tend to perceive their choices and social world through the filter of individualism and downplay the role of group-behavior outside of narrow recreational worlds. Income is dead as a clear predictor of behavior in social science. But, combinations of education and income can predict things like zip code, etc. Autonomy to break class rules has made all of this much messier...except at the extremes of poverty and wealth. I think a lot of journalists confuse the 1% with the upper middle class again and again. Again, Americans are just bad at social analysis, since we prefer to see individuals and personalities sloshing about in a cultural mosh pit of opportunity. Note: almost no one in the mosh pit ever winds up on stage, they just go home sweaty and groped.
Thanks James. Having trouble getting the mosh pit image out of my mind!
I like this, David, and it’s an interesting question - I casually talk about the “rich,” but that’s always relative. I think we can and should talk about economic class in the U.S., but in terms of power, I’d say that really comes down to privilege and control of key resources - such as the media and tech platforms. That’s where the real power lies, and while it’s tied to wealth, it keeps claiming to be be just like the rest of us.
Egregious consumption among the tech upper crust happens out of sight, so it doesn’t seem conspicuous - but the consuming of too many public resources is happening, especially in places like San Francisco. These are the people who talk in very loud voices in fancy restaurants wearing sweatshirts (I’ve seen it happen). They yell at waiters and step over unhoused people lying on the street. They try to control every conversation, and are not leisurely in their approach at all.
I sometimes think that the real problem and challenge of wealth comes in lack of empathy for those who struggle. You either forget your own struggles to make ends meet or you have no idea what it’s like because you grew up with money. When you’re insensitive in this way it has a chilling effect on society and what everyone can aspire to - and that’s the chill I feel now with the rise of the techno- plutocracy.
Thanks for the comment, Martha. I don't experience the sort of entitled behavior you describe in SF in Manhattan, but have seen it in the Hamptons.
It may have to do with the immaturity of the wealthy and entitled in SF.
The lack of empathy is an issue one can choose to ignore or contend with. If you haven't experienced what it's like to struggle financially––and I fit that category––I don't think you can ever achieve true empathy for those who are impoverished..
But what you can do is try to educate yourself by reading about and speaking to people who do have that empathetic experience, which can help you get a little closer to imagining what it might be like. And of course do what you can to help.
Self-awareness of limitations and strengths is what matters, David, and you express that admirably. For me, empathy and compassion are a daily practice, not static qualities - and I fail my own standards all the time. But acknowledging that others come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives is my starting point - yours, too, I bet.
I think the difference between the wealthy and the rest of the population is missing in here and should be noted. What work feels like vs what making money feels like. You glossed over the fact that the wealthy are free. They dabble in their interests, grow their curiosity and invest in their intuition and consciousness.
I am busy all the time and I love it. But it is at my direction. I don't have people dressing me or cleaning my house. But I do have several roombas and kids who homeschool. We all pitch in and there is very little "work" because we share it.
My life is mine to determine what I want to do with it. I have an immense freedom and people literally can't fathom what this is. I grew up in poverty and for awhile was a single parent. I worked for others and that is very different. The stress of being on others schedules is captivity. It is slavery. We still have slavery for everyone but the wealthy. Someone else owns your time. Someone else dictates what your outputs are and focus is.Your life is focused on serving up.
Our education system sets this mindset and women have the easiest time breaking free thanks to children. I had high needs children and I had to look at the future for them and realize the cost of we did not figure out how to teach them to make their own way. The deprogramming that must be done to learn to make your own path and life takes average people a decade to undo. This is why schooling is required at 5. They start you in others schedules that young. It is not to educate. We all learn naturally. Especially today with the abundance of information.
I work with profoundly gifted creatives. I help them deprogram from the system so they can find their creative genius. The most intelligent die under the schedule of others. They turn on themselves like a wild animal does when brought into captivity. We pathologize this as autism or ADHD. Really it is the schedules we maintain which are simply to much for someone whose IQ is above 150. Their higher taking in of inputs makes them crazy if they can't process them all and understand. This is why we cap the testing of IQ at 145.
This is the difference between being wealthy and not. It is owning your own thoughts. It is creating your work on what interests you. It is living at the pace you want or can live.
We exault the wealthy. We think they are super human. They are not. They destroy the people with extreme talent and make us put them in there. Steve Jobs was profoundly gifted with autism and it killed him working so much. His anger outbursts are all normal for ASD people with too much on their plate. You will find the most amazing people die young from their schedule being too much. They die of cancer, ALS, in my case epilepsy almost did me in. Anything neurological can be added here as well as all the chronic illnesses. This is why the PG creatives die young. This is why you have to go outside the system to find out if you are one.
The wealthy may "work" a lot but they live lives without the toxic stress of being under the thumb of others or the system. They take many vacations, they sleep enough. They decide what they will do each day.
They enslave rest of the population and destroy the sustainable model we should have moved to or stayed at to main healthy ecology just to maintain their wealth.
Ah yes, Lillian, love this. The rich have rigged our political systems and work environments to institutionalize trickle up economics. They have us working to keep them where they are. They have stolen our time and ability to direct our own lives and build communities. To take those back is a revolutionary act.
Hi Lillian,
I set out in this essay to look out Veblen's theory of how the wealthy behaved circa 1900 and compare it to how they behave today. I didn't have room to consider the gulf between the wealthy and the rest. At least not in this post!
You make a lot of interesting points about freedom and how people like Steve Jobs have a workaholics disease. "You will find the most amazing people die young from their schedule being too much. "
I really appreciate your analysis. Thanks for giving me a lot to think about, which is likely to show up in a future post!
Thank you for engaging and contributing significantly to the discourse.
I think that every group, however it's members are selected, will have a number of good and evil souls, stingy and generous, kind and cruel and so on. All these characteristics are matters of character and heart, having nothing to do with wealth, nature of one's employment, geographic location, etc. I have met lawyers whom I trust and do not. I have met carpenters I'd welcome in my home and not. In every group, this mix will exist because the grouping does not determine or result from such traits. Even among the clergy, some are of better heart and intent than others.
oh, impunity corrupts. but so does envy
Another vote for Carson!
I have a slight preference for Bates. But both are great characters!
Due to some friends at PBS I got to go for free to one of the Downton Abbey press junkets with the cast and also the interactive exhibition with costumes and sets and so forth. The latter was a guided tour hosted by virtual Carson, it was a hoot and a shame that footage hasn't otherwise been released in some form.
I see the poverty around me, not the wealth. The wealth - luxury class killed the American Dream.
The deep poverty in America is inexcusable for a country as wealthy as ours. An eye-opening book for me was $2 Per Day, which discusses the welfare reforms under Clinton and how those reforms and other government policies and failures of policies have impacted the deeply poor in urban, suburban, and rural environments.
It's why I so value the work that the Robin Hood Foundation does.
Clinton may have signed that legislation, but it was not authored by him, it was drafted by by Rep. John Kasich (R-Ohio) in a GOP-controlled Congress. Clinton was forced into signing the Republican bill out of concern for getting re-elected. See this article - https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/22/clinton-signs-welfare-to-work-bill-aug-22-1996-790321#:~:text=John%20Kasich%20(R%2DOhio),and%20to%20discourage%20out%2Dof%2D
Clinton did what he had to do. this happens with presidents on both sides of the aisle.
I studied poverty policy a few years ago when working on my B.A. Poverty policy is designed to funnel the money, allocated for those living in poverty, through various government agencies and non profits before it even gets to the folks who need it.
Imagine if we empowered people who need to get out of poverty, by directly helping them rather than sending them all over hell and back to get the assistance they need. We saw a sampling of how that could work with the pandemic grants that the federal government sent out to singles and families.
I've lived in deep poverty more than once in my life, as a single mother during the Clinton era, and now as a senior, reliant solely on a piddling amount of Social Security monthly, and other "benefits" that never cover enough.
Direct grants of money are efficient. The Expanded CTC was a great policy that ought to have been made permanent.
I appreciate your perspective.
I have a lot to say about the topic. 🤓
Really interesting post David. I hadn’t thought to interrogate the “luxury beliefs” argument, but you’re right that it doesn’t stand up. Maybe the way to understand all this is really macro conceptions of identity. Veblen was dealing with a model of wealth that was primarily aristocratic, about handed-down wealth - so work would be viewed as a sign of not being truly wealthy. Our “meritocratic” system means treating work as a necessary gateway to wealth, so much of our conspicuous consumption is actually about showing how hard you work.
It's interesting, as you point out, how work is a badge of honor instead of "shabbiness."
Thanks for the comment Sam.
Excellent piece!
Important to keep in mind that Veblen was writing in a period of enormous income inequality in which the general population had no recourse. In the Panic of 1907, Pierpont Morgan bailed out the United States as an individual. Income tax was still six years away. Hereditary aristocracies still ruled in virtually every country in Europe and the financial aristocracy ruled in the US. In other words, the wealthy had little or nothing to fear from ordinary people. That was soon to change. We underestimate the impact of World War I on the ruling class, as well as art and culture, but when it was done, previously powerless segments of society had become a force to deal with. (Russia scared the willies out of everyone else, but Italy, Germany, Austria, etc.--even the UK--had upheavals of their own.) These new power groups have grown in size and sophistication. As such, the willingness of the super rich to flaunt their wealth and thereby become targets has diminished. Some still do, but most, if their names get in the news at all--Harlan Crow, Richard Uihlein, for example--evoke a "Who's that?" I would postulate that within their circle, their consumption is every bit as conspicuous, but they make a much more concerted effort to keep a low profile with the general public.
That's a great historical perspective. There's a lot written about today's failure of "elites" (apologies to Josh Blumenthal for using that term!)
But any modern failures are small compared to The First World War. And I think you're right that we underestimate how important that failure was.
As for public flaunting, I think there's a smaller percentage of the very wealthy that do it, but it certainly still takes place.
Harlan Crow is the perfect name for a James Bond villain!
Haha. True. But Crow, naive as it may have been, never expected to have his name become public and thus available for the next Bond film. (Scenes we'd like to see.) And yes, WWI had a much greater impact on social structure than WWII. On science/engineering as well, the A bomb notwithstanding. It was the first time, in a serious way, for tanks, airplanes, submarines, mechanized transport, and a lot more. Forced a total rethinking of both tactics and defense as well as prompting the targeted killing of masses of civilians, mostly by Germany, rather than just as collateral damage.
I honestly don’t know where I land on this yet...I’m going to have to keep thinking. But you’re doing a good job of convincing me to give downton a try!!
Downton Abbey is great escapism.
Great essay as usual David! - I also agree that Veblen is dead, and Rob Henderson's argument is flawed. The trouble with all these types of "poll-based" and "index" or "coefficient" based arguments in economics and politics is that the flaws in the data are so glaring that it's hard to make a conclusion from any of them. Working more from first principles (as you have done) is sometimes a better strategy.
Thanks Zan. Polls are very amenable!