Thanks for being so honest about your life. It takes courage to write what you wrote. Below is one of my favorite passages from Churchill. I thought you might appreciate it. It was part of his 1941 eulogy for Neville Chamberlain
"The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour."
Well said. Though I do agree with David’s assessment of White Lotus (Ratliff’s dissolution became boring episode after episode), Parker Posey was a treat.
Not the way it works. At all. Would anyone work hard just to give some parasite a 50 grand stipend? That’s exactly why communism requires force. Everyone stops working hard because who wants the fruits of their efforts taken from them? Also wealth isn’t a zero sum sum game. The more wealth, the more possibilities for wealth. The person who created something great, for which millions gave a dollar or two to acquire, can now afford to hire carpenters gardeners decorators artists and the like. Keep everyone poor by confiscating wealth and nobody has anything much. It’s only good for resentful parasites dreaming of getting the wealth of their neighbors without doing anything to earn it. (My guess is you’re too young to have any experience in the world. You think all the stuff that exists is just there. People just wake up and take it. Instead, everything you see has been built by someone hoping to make a better life.) I’m not rich in case you’re wondering. And I have observed that inherited wealth seems to make people more callous. The poor are more generous because they know what it feels like to be out in the cold.
It is like a contract and it's an interesting way to think about it. Perhaps our modern day version of "bread and circuses." But it seems to me––and perhaps this is a case of my being overly sensitive–--that the stereotypes of the wealthy as awful have become more prevalent and more pronounced. I worry that many people may not recognize that shows like White Lotus and Succession and Billions and people like Bezos and Musk are over the top and not representative and then mockery turns to hate. It's unintentional propaganda.
The example I like to point to is Sam Walton’s grandchildren. Everyone of them is or will eventually be a billionaire. I’m sure most of them are nice people, but regardless, any system that allows that degree of generational wealth accumulation and transfer is drifting toward a new feudalism. Perhaps members of the 0.1% need to be held to different behavioral standard the just being good people. In addition, you must actively work to counter the 0.1%ers that are not good people and that seek further tax reductions and additional methods to transfer generational wealth. Mere silence is complicity at those level of wealth.
This is really about YOU. Do you really CARE about poor people,some of whom are vicious and nasty. Or is that by telling everyone you care,I don't mean in this thread,that's fair you are making social comment but if you talk all the time about how much YOU CARE then that reflects well on YOU. You are a good person because you CARE. Only BAD PEOPLE don't care. Try having NO MONEY ,go and hang out with the homeless bums,you'll soon find out it's not like in the musical Oliver! " consider yerself at ome...whatever we got we share..."
Thanks Stellar for the comment. I hope it's the first of many times you comment. I don't know if it's true that the majority of the wealthy are comfortable with the level of inequality we've reached. I'm not. I know that in exit polling, those with greater than $100k in income skewed Democratic in 2024 as do those with higher educational attainment.
I think our tax system is not progressive enough which is part of the reason why we have the weakest social safety net among our peers.
I don't mean to take away the indulgence of making fun of some of the wealthy. they deserve it! And I'm sure there are times I deserve it too. But wide sweeping generalizations like the sentence I quoted about stealing are not helpful.
Finally, the wealthy that I know tend to be philanthropic and do not ignore suffering.
So what level of “progressive” taxation would be appropriate? Would it be sufficient in your view if the bottom 50% of taxpayers paid, say, 3% of federal taxes while the top 5% paid 61%? Because that’s what we have now.
Your use of the term “hoarding” bespeaks a zero-sum mindset, in which total wealth is viewed as a fixed sum, like a giant pizza, in which the wealthy, by having more, deprive the poor. Once you understand that a well-functioning market economy is a whole series of positive sum interactions, the urge to redistribute dissipates. This does not mean, of course, that all of the wealthy enhance productivity-- the private equity game, as currently played, is effectively looting. But getting rid of that requires changes to tax and bankruptcy rules, as well as some corporate law stuff, and it’s far too complex to explain to populists of either party.
I’ll also point out that White Lotus is fiction; it’s not a documentary.
It's a message from the Secret Elite who are channelling the world toward the one world government they want to place in using digital ID to control the world's population,that's us. Everything they do,they tell us first in coded form. Often as a malicious joke too. Like when they renamed COVID as OMICRON which crossword addicts quickly recognized was an anagram of Moronic,what they think of us,and none of them even bothered to refute it
You are right that we already have a progressive tax system. What we don't have is a sufficient tax base for a social safety net. So if everyone;s taxes went up proportionately and that extra revenue was used to pay for healthcare for everyone, for example, that would be a vast net improvement in the standard of living for much of the bottom 50%.
One of the things that bothers me about folks on the left, is that they tend to obsess over the “social safety net” but they never even seem to consider creating a scenario where people are productive enough that they don’t actually need a social safety net and can instead do well without transfer payments.
Of course, one of the easiest ways to help the folks in the bottom 50% of the income ladder is to curb illegal immigration and law skill legal immigration. But that seems to be off limits.
As to health care, again the whole emphasis is on distribution of existing resources. No attention to reducing administrative costs. With drugs, it’s all about price controls and reducing profits, with no focus on reducing intrinsic cost of manufacturing with technological improvements. It’s just a very static way of looking at the world.
My husband and I are childless by choice and have recently retired. Both of us worked our asses off for decades and retired with a pile of money, a gorgeous house on 10 acres, and no financial worries. We saved and planned for a peaceful retirement. Both sets of siblings are well educated affluent healthy and comfortable. Our parents had no financial or health issues while they were alive and when they died we inherited modest sums (less than half a years salary) which we invested. We do not have inherited wealth as you do but we recognize that our financial situation was the product of affordable colleges, Pell Grants, paid internships, and lucky connections. I spent my career in service to poor people. I still volunteer weekly at a food kitchen. I have been surrounded by poverty throughout my career and now in retirement. I’ve never been poor except when I ran away from home and was homeless for two years—but I escaped poverty through education. I think the resentment we see and hear is because my very lucky life path is virtually impossible nowadays. Colleges are prohibitively expensive, housing costs are insane, and health care is crippling any possible future savings. That’s what people are pissed at: my generation (1960s babies) had so many opportunities, we are now “leaders” and we have voted out all those social programs that led to our financial security. It doesn’t matter if we volunteer and donate and reach out to politicians. I don’t think anything will fundamentally change without a bloody revolution. Sorry to say it, but someone is going to hang in effigy, because people are righteously pissed. Luigi was a harbinger.
Ellen, I agree with this completely. The fact that the path is gone leads to confusion and despair--to an understandable sense of injustice, naturally directed at the very wealthy. What's curious to me, though, is how much we also laud the very wealthy. We still glorify them. For example--you turn on the radio and so much of the music is still about the desire for / attainment of wealth. Can there be a revolution if everybody would turn around and be a bourgeoisie if they could? I'm genuinely curious!
Don’t forget that wealthy people control all of their depictions. Crass “wealth” displays are almost always from people new to money. The stuff we hear and see in the media—the fascination with divorces of the Gates and Bezoses—are carefully curated and controlled depictions of their lives. When TV and movies depict shitty rich people, that depiction is actually just the jester in the kings castle. It allows for the steam of income inequality resentment to bleed off before the barbarians are at the gates, blowing up the whole thing. There’s a reason truly wealthy people do very little “advertising” of their lives.
Great conversation here between Isabel and Ellen. Elsewhere I wondered whether the depictions are modern day versions of bread and circuses. Does a show like White Lotus take the edge off resentment of a Millennial who has a good job but can't afford to buy a home? Or does it add to the envy?
I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Succession was perhaps it was my bread and circus as someone looking up at the billionaire class and thinking I wouldn't trade places with Logan Roy for anything.
(1) A fundamental problem is that “wealthy” is a misleading (or at least useless) term at this point. The top 0.001%, 0.01%, 0.1%, and 1%, and even 10% of income get conflated in statistics and reporting. That allows an Elon Musk to be conceived of as representative of the top 1% that includes millions of people with essentially nothing in common with him. And the hockey stick of how much more income and wealth it takes to move up each order of magnitude is hard to comprehend or remember. Moreover, income and wealth have causation and correlation relationships, but not nearly what they are given credit for, but income statistics are all that are reported.
(2) Even if “good” and “bad” people are distributed roughly evenly through our society, the “bad” with more economic power can certainly be interpreted as doing more damage to others. Bezos can cause Amazon to treat what, hundreds of thousands? of people poorly in their jobs—their daily lives. Combine this with point (1), and someone like you in the top 0.x% and a successful professional in the top 1% of income are responsible by (ludicrously off-the-mark) association.
(3) This one is harder for to articulate, but, I think there is something in the consumerism part that confuses things. That $3,500 scotch can make folks jealous for not being able to spend that or because of what they could do with the money instead, etc. There is surely some finance bro somewhere buying one this week (to use a stereotype). That is almost a relatable sort of thing to be jealous or envious of—“I can buy a drink, but not that”. And then there are things like being able to buy a sports franchise (moving that decimal point again). It all gets swirled together.
I just responded above that I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Succession was perhaps it was my bread and circus as someone looking up at the billionaire class and thinking I wouldn't trade places with Logan Roy for anything.
I found David’s such a fair and balanced piece, I was shocked to find comments like this below it.
It is not up to the wealthy to send out $50,000 checks to the struggling, nor would that solve the problem. It’s up to our governments and companies who should use their profits to pay workers more and provide social benefits to their families. Wealth inequality is a failure of governance, not of the rich.
And hating the benefactors of this system will do nothing to solve it. The only thing that will: Getting involved in our workplaces to pay people more and offer better benefits programs. Starting and creating employee owned businesses. Getting involved in our local governments, chamber of commerces, and state employee ownership labs to help companies sell to employees when founders retire. Right now I’m working with a coalition to write legislation that would make the bottom half way richer through equity ownership.
If everyone who hates the rich uses that energy instead to help the poor become richer, we would all be working to fix the system instead of complaining about its bad results.
I agree it's not about the wealthy writing checks to the poor, (though in certain circumstances giving startup money to invest in making a living does. Eg. Paying for a pair of goats so a person in a small village can sell milk and breed more goats, or a bicycle to bring their produce to a market that's too far away to walk, and other small startup grants or micro-loans.) But neither are the wealthy passive victims of circumstance who have no agency to create equity. Many wealthy are the business owners who can (and I argue *should* pay their employees a living wage with adequate health insurance and in some cases pension, though this would also fail to maximize profits for owners, executives, and shareholders. The wealthy absolutely have the biggest lever to lobby for change in government while the poor are often saddled with punishments for being poor, such as fines for late payments, higher health care costs, less opportunity for fair housing, so they have less time for grass-roots organizing. It's on neither group alone to create equality; both the wealthy and the poor have to participate in creating change - (yes, wealthy people often make donations to institutions, an important and impactful action) but in order to create equity in the *system* that's doing the "stealing", I believe more wealthy people would have to use their power to leverage legal change at the governmental level, and I see very little desire from that group to do so.
Yuk. I've been down wid dem huddled masses (in UK) and stop romanticizing em. They are nasty people. That's why they are down there. Even if all the wealth in the world was shared out equally they would soon be back at the bottom of the muck heap again. They are not nicer because they are poor.
I don’t actually know any rich people personally. It has never occurred to me to generalize them, given that no other social class has any kind of uniform character. I have two people I know are rich who subscribe to me. One is on the liberal left, the other is quite rightist. I get along with both just fine.
As an experiment, I invite any rich person or group of rich people to give me several million dollars to see if it turns me evil. If it does, I’ll give it back. That’s how science works.
David, he needs the millions first so he can buy the Macallan 25 to send you. If the Librarian could already send you the fancy scotch we wouldn’t need to do his experiment.
I’m not rich enough to give you several million dollars, but I can give you $20. Will that work?
Also, I don’t have any single malt scotch, because it all tastes like gasoline to me. But I do have some Burgundy. Might that be sufficiently corrupting?
Okay, you got me. I live in an area where there is a fair amount of wealth. Our neighbors vary in friendliness, like any community. I do have a bias, though, and it’s this: wealthy people assume they’re better than me because of their wealth. They tend to talk more about themselves than to inquire about me. After all, I’m not in their league so what could we possibly have in common? One neighbor’s wife is a middle school librarian, so when we had them over for drinks on our porch, she and I spoke about our favorite children’s books and authors. It was nice. That was nearly a year ago. They’ve never invited us over. Not expecting it, they have plenty of friends and we’re new here. Fine.
I listened to an interview with Melinda French Gates, who has a memoir out and is making the rounds. She said something that really clicked for me, in response to a question about the shuttering of USAID. She said that her foundation and others like it are entrepreneurial; they’re great at field-testing ideas to see what works. And, she said, the only way to scale up a program is through government partnerships.
I wonder, David, how do you feel about the connection being made by some in the media between the dismantling of vital government functions and the optics of affording tax cuts for billionaires? It seems a stretch to connect the two, but what Ms Gates said makes me wonder —what’s the obsession with tax cuts? Government programs really do a lot of good in many areas.
The ultra-rich live within a generosity spectrum, as it were. On one extreme are those like Melinda Gates, who choose to give away vast amounts of their wealth...basically because it pleases them to do so. On the other extreme lie folks like the Waltons, heirs to the Walmart fortune, who have given away nearly none of their collectively enormous fortune.
The latter variety of ultra-rich tend to be the ones who bankroll Republican (and some Blue-dog Dem) politicians to lower taxation on capital gains, unearned income, inheritances and corporate income. These are the people that either want to preserve their existing wealth--or aggressively grow it further.
Many of these folks have fully adopted a form of social Darwinism, whereby they see themselves as inherently special, or superior, by virtue of their wealth, and/or the skills/opportunities/circumstances that facilitated its accrual. Many feel they should pay little or no taxes by virtue of all the entrepreneurial juice their wealth provides the economy; like the creation of jobs, building of factories, etc.
And they're mistaken. They don't get a pass. I want to say, with great wealth comes great responsibility, but I'm fully aware that not all people, wealthy or not, think that way. I forget who observed that the reason working-class Americans aren't more activist against the 1% is that we all secretly believe (dream / wish) we'll soon be millionaires ourselves.
You could argue that everyone is responsible for their deeds, words and thoughts. Irregardless of their current net worth. I'm a Buddhist, OK.
The bottom line is that our current Gilded Age continues apace, with the bulk of American wealth further concentrating in roughly four hundred or so families. The market concentrations that enabled such accrual also proceeds, with literally every sector of the economy dominated by either a monopoly, a duopoly or an Oligopoly. Which results in universally lower wages for 99% of employees across the board, as well as increased consumer and other costs for all American families.
There is one political party that unapologetically and unreservedly serves the interests of our financial elites despite its' populist posturing to the contrary. And a second that halfheartedly attempts some sort of balance between rich and poor. The only likely catalyst that will shake up this equation is extreme financial pain. Which the incompetence of our ruling party is likely to provide all of us in the near future.
I think the shuttering of USAID was a tragedy and evil.
There are three problems with the planned budget/tax bill. it would make inequality worse, it would potentially contain a significant to Medicaid, and it would lead to bigger deficits and larger national debt burden. I'm hoping the cuts are so unpopular that it won't pass.
The projected $500 billion shortfall in the IRS 2025 take is of particular note. All due to Musk's incompetence, it completely dwarfs any of DOGE's alleged cost cuts.
The GOP is on track to deliver us a whopping $2.5 trillion budget deficit in 2025. Republican "Borrow and Spend" rule is turning out to be a fiscal disaster for our country.
I think people are not paying enough attention to this. Probably because the effects of the deficit and national debt burden will show up over time and not immediately.
I don´t know about other countries, but in Germany or Switzerland there are "Leftist" (i.e. Communist/ "Socialist") parties with politicians, chair(wo)men who say frankly "I don´t know any wealthy rich person" - but then for half an hour they tell you everything about "what rich people do, how they act and how they are".
Just imagine, you told this "Socialist" ' I don' t know any immigrant from Africa, Afghanistan or Turkey, and I don´t want to know them because 'they are' ... (insults and certainties following for half an hour)".
Then these "socialists" will name you a "racist", a "misogyn", a "Hate Speecher" etc. Only "Leftists" are owners of "the truth" , know everything and are allowed to speak their "truths" which never can be "Hate Speech", they are rather able to define clearly what "Hate Speech" should be.
I, for example, was born poor to poor parents. Now I own a 1000sqm-ground with a big house & six cats and am happily married and also rent other habitations - I have worked for this all my life , I hadn´t inherited anything - and even if, all the inheritant "rich" I know keep working too and not just rarely also give money to "social causes" (apart from their taxes they have to give away which mostly also go to "social causes"):
But "Socialists" only(want to) know the "few" who "have everything" and reside in Monaco and Portofino without having done or doing anything. I know so many "rich" but not any of those the "Socialists" 'know'. You can´t do anything about it, "Socialists" always know better. That makes them so rich, their abundant knowledge.
Even if a million "Real Socialism"s would fail with hundreds of millions victims murdered, they will always cling to their "belief". No arguing possible.
David, I truly appreciate your writing and enjoy and agree with many of your essays. I especially appreciate your acknowledgement of the privilege you and your family enjoy. I am not wealthy, though I have had a career in which I worked with and for wealthy people. I am a 65 year old white male and likely would not have had the career I had were it not for the privilege of my race and gender. That said, I earned my keep, and acknowledge and don’t apologize for privilege I have enjoyed.
One question on this one: you say you did not earn your wealth by immoral means. I was under the impression that, while you did have a lucrative career, you come from generational wealth. I am not suggesting that generational wealth is in and of itself immoral, or that any of your wealth was ill-gotten. I am curious how wealthy you might be if you and your wife had not inherited substantial wealth.
Thanks Steve for the question, which is a difficult one to answer. Part of my identity, like everyone's, is wrapped up in my familial origins. I was good at what I did but I got my first job through a family connection and that eventually led to the flourishing of my career. Had I been the same person without any inherited wealth I think I would have prospered because I would have taken a similar career path. Not as much perhaps.
However had I been born to a family without wealth but with my personality and traits intact, I very well might have become an academic.
Thank you, David, for your thoughtful response. I really appreciate it, and your thoughtfulness and honesty.
Incidentally, your writing that I’ve enjoyed the most has been your stories of family and relationships. I hope that you gain a significant following among young men, who need to read of men like yourself — thoughtful, respectful and yes, successful and wealthy, as opposed to some of the jokers (a term likely too kind) getting so much attention among young men these days.
I am an academic at a public university nearing the end of my career and find that comment extremely ironic. I went into academia optimistically expecting a middle class livelihood in exchange for the hard work of teaching and changing lives. I still get to do the latter but have seen higher education gutted in the last 20 years, and seen my own salary shrink due to lack of and extremely low cost of living increases and so forth. I earn far less than I thought I would at this point (and I never had any grand illusions), and my institution, due to legislative defunding, crippled in what it is able to do for students. And the rich either could care less about the situation or are actively part of the defunding. It is demoralizing to be asked to work harder for less and to do more with less and less for the very people you want to help.
Thanks for the comment Stephanie. I do care that our universities are under attack. And part of that is squeezing the teachers. The damage will be severe and it will be somewhat hidden because how do you measure a person's ability to flourish intellectually? It's not GDP.
America has a long history of undervaluing teachers. I remember reading Richard Hofstatder's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and seeing that consistent thread for the first time.
What is the opposite to this line of thinking? I used to ascribe to it. I listened to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey and others and thought, how amazing to be a philanthropist. Maybe it is social media that has "icked" out the world to the top 1%. Seeing beautiful people standing in front of his and hers Gulf Stream jets does tend to skew the feeling about the 1%. I think the author wants us to deny the lack of reality this presents to those people in the 99% that don't own a jet and have 1 million instagram followers. And to say these people who own dual jets are "not awful" (using the byline) seems hard for me to get behind. Maybe I want to demonize them. I guess I am struggling to find why this person has such "worth" in the world based on their "worth$". This article is a total mind-FXXk for sure. So for that reason, it will ruminate in my not 1% brain.
Sorry, KTon, that this post has burrowed in your head! I'd agree with you about the people on social media who are posting themselves doing or owning cliched rich people things. They should be reviled for their obtuseness. My point is that they are the visible exception.
Those are not real rich people. Real wealth is discreet. You might see the Duke of Beaufort and think it was the gardener and such. In some circumstances. All that champagne and gold taps shows on tv (I don't have a tv) is nonsense. But I'm talking to one who already knows!
I have read an analysis by a serious financial journalist but I can't quote it verbatim but the rich like Melinda Gates and others are giving away NOTHING. That is ,and it's too complex for me to explain,these philanthropic trusts are so set up and managed that even if they give say,an African country $45million and that sounds impressive and caring,somehow the money is still there. They can "give it away" but still have it. If I understood how it worked I wouldn't be who I am wondering where my next ticket to Paris is coming from. And another objection to this private philanthropy is that is has the potential to be politically weighted and in the most notorious Oligarchs it is,in fact glaringly so now. But even when it's more opaque these huge sums of money can influence who has political control in an African or Asian country and it's not going to be anyone who doesn't favour the wealth path of the kind disinterested givers.
This is how it works : their money is invested and when you have that much money, it’s hard to give money away as fast as your money makes money. The S&P 500, a popular benchmark for stock market performance, has returned an average of 8.87% per year over the past 20 years. 8.8% of 30 billion is 2.6 billion. So the first year, assuming the market returns the average, you are making 2.6 BILLION DOLLARS by doing nothing. The second year, you are making 8.8% on 32.6 billion (2,868,800,000) Over time, with compound interest, the rich get richer EXTREMELY fast. Melinda gates is trying to give money away very fast but her org has to do due diligence and follow the law. People are using this same principle of market returns and the power of compound interest to FIRE (financial independence /retire early) on surprisingly small amounts of money. However with the way the market is going no one knows if that will work over the next two decades! We will see.
Thank you for this explanation. No one teaches us this sort of thing. But maybe if you're not canny enough to work it out for yourself there is no point in telling you. Maybe our state education systems see it that way!
The writer you referenced may have been discussing other methods like charitable remainder trusts, which earmark assets for a charity LATER while still giving income to original owners or their beneficiaries NOW, or charitable lead trusts, which allow charities to receive income from assets NOW but return the remainder back to original owner later. Both of these have tax incentives that may make this an attractive option for the wealthy.
I believe basic finance should be a class in every high school. If more people truly knew about the incredible power of compound interest, I think people would save more money early in life because they would understand how powerful it is. The median household income is the US is $80,610. Retirement wisdom tells us we need 10x our income at retirement. That would be $800,610 for the median household. With contributions of $2,500 annually from age 20 to 30, followed by contributions starting at $2,500 at age 30 and increasing by 5% each year until age 67, with a 7% annual return, you could potentially have approximately $911,659.54 by age 67. With a max contribution of $ $4,241.84 at
age 67. This is WITHOUT any matching from an employer. We really need to do whatever we can to support young people so they can save save save early, with education about this, free healthcare, deferred loan paybacks, etc and so on. Yes saving that much money between ages 20-30 is difficult but people also have the most energy they will EVER HAVE for side hustles, they are surrounded by other people who are living moderately, etc. It’s much easier than catching up in your 40’s which is honestly nearly impossible. If you don’t begin retirement saving until age 40 you would need to contribute $14,378 a year until 67 to get to 800k. That would be difficult for most people! The axiom “time in the market beats timing the market” needs to be beat into the head of every 23 year old man logging into wallstreetbets.
This study suggests that wealth can make people less kind/courteous. It’s only one study and I don’t think it’s been repeated so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
Obviously, “not all wealthy people,” but a statistically significant percentage nevertheless.
That said, I’ve had the opportunity to interact closely with people across the wealth spectrum, including the exceedingly wealthy, and my conclusion is similar to yours. There are some really annoying wealthy people, but it’s not the rule.
Dan, that's an interesting study. There;s a study using the game Monopoly where the game is rigged in favor of one player. As that player gets richer in the game they become more aggressive.
This must’ve been a vulnerable piece to write for you, and I applaud the willingness to delve into such a tendentious subject (judging by some of the comments, the flame wars are just beginning!)
One important aspect of the disdain for the Uber wealthy, I think, is what is at least often perceived as their *general* disinterest in interacting with the average world, so to speak. It’s always amazed me that the stereotype of a millionaire would prefer a stuffy bar with white linen table cloths and a lot of finance bros around them than a dive bar where young artists and old regulars and everything in between are drinking honest priced drinks. For me, that’s where my knee-jerk feeling of resentment comes from, in the (perhaps mythological?) idea that the wealthier people are, the less interested they are interacting (in a genuine way) with those who have far less than them, which is at least 99% of the population.
Thanks Samuel for the comment. That's a fair criticism. And it brings to mind the recent proliferation of private clubs that have high initiation and annual fees and then members still pay for the food and drink. That's totally exclusionary. That's worse than the white linen table cloth restaurant/bar.
Everything's relative in NYC but I'd rather go to a casual place any time.
I do not belong to any of the NYC private clubs for many reasons. But here's an example of one to give you an idea.
My opinion of the wealthy… I’m not necessarily sure this piece changes it, though I always appreciate your point of view and your writing. Thank you.
I’ve spent the past nearly 30 years living in the UK and France, returning home to the US to be close to family (on the dawn of this presidency that most Europeans -counting myself as One- thought impossible to occur). As I re-enter The American Way, and Capitalism in the raw, I find myself not angry at ‘the wealthy’, but at the systems that allow this to happen at the neglect of the poor and middle classes. What I observe as ‘Conservatism’ and oft the preferred stance of those holding enough wealth, is an innate belief that ‘everyone’ can, so they should. Can = achieve gainful employment that pays their household bills AND healthcare AND savings, education, healthcare. The numbers don’t add up. The thinking is maligned.
In fact, not ‘everyone’ can. Many are born into situations that are virtually inescapable, devoid of the real foundational help needed for seismic change to cut the cords of generational trauma or belief systems. Many are born without the intellect or with seen or unseen ‘handicaps’ and hurdles that make daily life a difficult task. They just are. Adding insult to injury, when a government is meant to govern and -in my opinion- look after the people (ALL the people), and it doesn’t… and the people are told that ‘the wealthy effect’ will trickle down… it doesn’t. It never has. Or, the trickle is akin to the ‘wealthy’ choosing the industries, people or causes that they relate to. In my experience, the happiest cultures are those where social democracy is the norm. Where everyone matters and everyone pays into the pot… to support those that otherwise cannot. So, until wealthy is untied from conservatism, I feel this spotlight that is being shown on ‘the wealthy’ is more due to the tone-deaf nature of conservatism more than anything else.
Thanks Abby for the comment. Personally I agree with you about European social democracy being a far more humane, fair, and moral system. And it upsets me when I hear a wealthy person make the false assumption that "anyone" can achieve what you listed. Of course it's not true and it's a wealth justification.
What I'm not sure about is the link between wealth people and the poverty of our social safety net. We're in a bizarre political moment in many ways, including that the party that seems to have convinced the majority of the working class to vote for them is now enacting policies that will hurt their working class voters.
One thing that upset me about the sentence I quoted from the NYT is that the 1% are in the best position to give to the Democratic Party and I believe that the 1% gave just as much to Harris as they did to Biden although it's hard to prove. So to say that the tent is not big enough for those who can contribute is self-defeating.
David David, I like the concept of the European social democracy… but it’s on the brink of collapse. Unaffordable. And what we think they have is sometimes distorted.
Diana, is it possible that the immigration inundation of Europe ( NATO now stands for "North African Tourism Omnivore" ) is what is killing off social democracy in Europe?
Thanks David. I've had a look back at the article in detail and thought it interesting that that point about the 1% came at the very, very end. It would be interesting to see where Schulman would go with this seemingly throwaway comment... I don't agree in the 'stealing' part as I don't believe the wealthy believe they are stealing and I think 'to steal' is an active state. I doubt very much any 'wealthy people' are knowingly stealing from the people with lower incomes. I believe there is enough wealth for everyone.
It is the governments role (IMHO) to provide, regulate and distribute the wealth, not the people's nor the 'free markets' role... and I feel that the 2-party system in the US no longer functions. It's too easy to blame the other side. When we look to govts in the UK for example, they have hundreds of parties, but 8 large ones and 3-4 that run a close call... and often, in very close elections, 2 parties will come together and form a Coalition to achieve majority and then govern together, for a number of years even. The system allows for conflict and consultation and agreement. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about how our US govt actually works, I just have been witnessing it falling apart... and wondering why we don't work to change 2 party (and remove the Blame Game)
However, I find the title of the article and 'why now is the time to stand up to people you oppose' more interesting than any of it. Should we really? Stand up to everyone we oppose? Gosh. Seems like more blaming and less birds-eye-viewing. If we follow the thread of Trumpers wanting less govt and for govt to be run like a business... then I suggest bringing in some of the great business consultants as well as leadership consultants to noodle away on a new approach,
Thanks for bringing up worthwhile subjects and healthy comments.
Thanks Abby. Parties have collapsed and divided before in American history. There is nothing in the constitution about parties so there might be a way to accommodate more than two but the states regulate the elections so I think it would have to be state by state.
But how impoverished _is_ our social safety net? We actually seem over abundant in distorted ways. The biggest challenges of the poor are actually obesity and substance abuse. People from all over the world will completely deplete their cash savings to come and be poor in America.
Almost every dramatisation of the uber-rich depicts them as “monstrous”, says Rowan Pelling in The Daily Telegraph. From the utterly loathsome Roy family in Succession to the Barbara Hutton biopic Poor Little Rich Girl, we’re invited to view those with pots of money as “inadequate, unhappy people”. Poverty-stricken characters such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’ Pip and Anthony Trollope’s Septimus Harding, meanwhile, are invariably portrayed as “far kinder than the affluent folk who surround them”. It’s a comforting emotional panacea for the less fortunate: the idea that poverty somehow renders people “morally superior”. But it’s not true.
A new study drawing on data gleaned from more than two million people across 60 societies has concluded that rich citizens are more inclined than hard-up ones to involve themselves in good causes. “This makes perfect sense to me.” Few things are harder than being strapped for cash. My husband has been notably “fractious” since he started taking his state pension and can no longer splurge £25 on a hardback copy of, say, Tom Holland’s Dominion. As the sole wage-earner in a household of four, I’m now distinctly stingier with my charitable donations. Meanwhile, my better-heeled pals are “pillars of their local communities”, working with countless charities and joining litter-picking taskforces. And Britain’s well-known families with considerable fortunes “tirelessly lubricate every part of society” – our great arts institutions would collapse if it weren’t for the Sainsburys and the Gettys. As for anyone consoling themselves that these folk must be miserable, whenever I’ve met such figures they’ve appeared entirely content and well-balanced. Let’s face it, the capacity for munificence makes you happy, while “penny-pinching makes you a misery-guts”. “
Thank you for this perspective, David. While you may generally believe your wealth wasn’t accumulated immorally, I’m making a vast assumption that your generational wealth is tied up in trusts and investments, of which many grow and deliver dividends on the backs of poor people and, sometimes, catastrophic events that have an outsized impact on poorer communities yet benefit the companies in which you’re invested.
This may not be true for your investments if you have done your diligence to avoid these scenarios. However, many wealthy individuals look more at the bottom line than the dirty business that drives it.
Thanks Jessica. I try to avoid investing in things that take advantage of the poor but I can't say my lifetime record is pure, especially when I was younger and not as aware of the issue of poverty.
I now believe it is my obligation to support causes that help people who are in poverty. not as contrition but because it's the right thing to do.
This is an interesting article, but it focuses mostly on spending and behavior, not on production of wealth. The claim that the 1% get rich by stealing reveals a certain mindset — the idea that economic wealth is a zero-sum game, where if you have more, I must have less. If there is a fixed pie, like a giant pizza, then of course if you have a bigger slice I must have a smaller one.
But a modern capitalist economy is not a zero-sum game; it’s a positive-sum game where new wealth is created. Both of the rich guys you single out got rich by creating something new. Musk took a flailing and likely soon to be bankrupt electric car company and made the first really practical electric car, and then he perfected aspects of rocket technology that allowed him to dramatically reduce the cost of sending stuff to space.
Bezos created Amazon, which changes the way we buy stuff. I can now take an entire library with me on vacation, thanks to Jeff Bezos.
We are all richer because of the enterprises that Bezos and Musk created.
In both cases, I’d argue their wealth accumulation was morally achieved. That said, I don’t condone Musk’s decision to have 14 children with 4 different women. But there are poor people who do that too! And at least Musk is providing for them financially.
As for Bezos, I don’t condone his extramarital affair— for which he paid a lot. But nor do I condemn him for getting fit. This is somewhat personal— I experienced some health issues in my 50s, and this caused me to embark on a fitness regimen that resulted in noticeable change, though not quite as swole as Bezos.
Nor do I condemn him for giving his girlfriend a joyride in a very short range spaceship. If I owned a spaceship and it was safe, I’d sure take joyrides in it! But what I find ludicrous is the idea that this made these ladies astronauts or space pioneers.
Now. Macallan 25. It’s a single malt scotch aged in sherry barrels for 25 years. I found it listed online for $2,500, so you can probably get it for less. I wouldn’t buy it because scotch, single malt or otherwise, is not to my taste. People who buy it don’t guzzle it like beer or even wine, or if they do it’s not for long, as it’s 40% alcohol.
However, for true aficionados of scotch, if they can afford it, I don’t see what’s wrong with drinking the stuff. I mean, I am a wine aficionado— I actually have a home wine cellar. If someone offered me a glass of Romanee-Conti Grand Cru, which goes for north of $20,000 a bottle, I’d drink it. Very slowly.
Now, I don’t buy Romanee-Conti, or pretty much any Grand Cru Burgundy, because I don’t care to spend thousands of dollars on a bottle of wine. But to me it’s a matter of prudent financial management, not some sort of moral issue. If I were ten times as rich as a I am now, I probably would. Because I really like good wine.
However, I wouldn’t drink it at a barbecue, because it’s unlikely to pair well with any of the dishes prepared at that type of meal. And, as a certified Wine Snob, creating a perfect pairing is absolutely mandatory. But I might drink it just as a drink, or paired with any food appropriately served with Pinot Noir.
In 1993, Scott and Bezos married. The following year, they left D. E. Shaw, moved to Seattle, and Bezos founded Amazon with Scott's support. Scott was one of Amazon's early key contributors, and was heavily involved in Amazon's early days, working on the company's name, business plan, accounts, shipping early orders,[17][8] and negotiating the company's first freight contract.[8] After 1996, Scott took a less involved role in the business, focusing on her literary career and family.
If you only value money over honor and personal integrity, I suppose paying a fine is some way to feel absolved.
Mackenzie didn't need a pay out. She went to Princeton and has an American book award. She worked on the company in her own right as illustrated above. She got what she was owed.
I don't know if im happy he created Amazon. The quality of everything has decreased since addiction to fast cheap everything. The quality of life seems to have gotten worse since Amazon.
Also, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyễn, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe went into space on that flight. Unfortunately, even today, women have to do what they can to accomplish their goals.
The one percent is largely white and male. It can be viewed as frivolous sending women in to space, but just because Amanda is attractive shouldn’t detract from The fact she’s a Harvard educated space research girlie.
I’m glad Bezos and Scott created Amazon but what makes me angry is that Amazon doesn’t pay their employees equitably. The company would still be profitable if they paid employees an actual living wage and didn’t subject them to horrible work conditions. And it’s definitely not necessary to illegally suppress union formation.
Thanks Pete. Yes, I glided over the positive aspects of what Musk and Bezos have done. I just wish they would recognize that they have great influence as role models and take that into account when they behave certain ways.
If she is saying that the largely white male 1 percent is causing the problem, she could be using wealth instead of saying white male.
The google is saying 82 percent of the 1 percent are white males. DEI has disappeared at the hands of this administration for a reason. Are white men trying to protect their status? Is she using wealth instead of race and gender because she will be immediately discredited if she says wealthy white males?
It is very offensive, especially to hard working families that made their money and helped others get extremely wealthy along the way.
That said, I had to look deeper. She is a woman well educated and her last name could infer a religious affiliation. I am probably reading more into this than necessary.
I suppose there a cultural identity with in the one percent in the US that needs to be ignited.
I am hoping to find the dm button to further explain my thought. I am flattered that you responded to my comment.
I appreciated this take. The closing quote from the hairdresser really captures the impossible position the wealthy are in when it comes to expressing either joy or sorrow. Joy makes them seem enviable, unrelatable, and lacking perspective. Sorrow makes them seem ungrateful, out of touch—and still lacking perspective.
I understand the collective impulse to indulge in a hatred of the wealthy, because for many, it makes their own lives feel more palatable. Perhaps the wealthy are no better or worse than any other economic class—but I do think wealth can shift your perspective in ways that make you less attuned to the struggles most people face.
A lot of wealth today is inconspicuous, so most people are forming opinions based on what they see on social media—Bezos, the Kardashians, or people buying Pateks and drinking the 25, lol. That said, I also think most people aren’t adequately morally tested in a lifetime. Wealth, by its nature, forces those tests—early and often. It presents ongoing choices around generosity, responsibility, entitlement, and fairness. So it’s easy for others to speak from a purely ideological or theoretical place, without ever having to live those dilemmas themselves.
It also raises the question of whether to hate the player or the system. Focus too much on the player and you risk fostering a world where basic rights hinge on someone else’s generosity. Focus too much on the system and you let individuals off the hook, blaming something entrenched and amorphous instead.
I’m also struck by how much perceptions of wealth vary culturally. In America, it’s still largely celebrated, even when the admiration is thinly veiled. Most of the people dominating public consciousness are rich. But in other countries—England, for instance—“posh” often feels like an insult.
Ultimately, I think people simplify their complicated feelings about wealth—wanting it, resenting it, not wanting to admit they want it—by villainizing the rich. Sometimes, that critique is valid and necessary. But other times, it serves as a convenient illusion—an easy way to avoid confronting their own contradictions or moral positioning.
Thanks Sophie for the comment, which is very nuanced. I wrestle with what you wrote below and I think the more morally successful approach is to focus on changing the system. But right now we are moving in the opposite direction.
"It also raises the question of whether to hate the player or the system. Focus too much on the player and you risk fostering a world where basic rights hinge on someone else’s generosity. Focus too much on the system and you let individuals off the hook, blaming something entrenched and amorphous instead."
But why should all the obligation be one way. Surely recipients of welfare should also have a responsible attitude. Not everyone of working age can participate in the workplace. Either due to caring duties at home and I mean serious as for a disabled child or a housebound elderly parent or some people genuinely cannot cope with the propinquity of other people and now lighthouses are automated there are just no jobs where that person can work solitary with no contact with others (which would be weird anyway). I think that if a person is or intends to live long term on welfare then they should have a duty not to waste their small income on drugs and booze,not to bring a strong of babies into the world,and to keep their homes clean and tidy. Of course this will never work as it is alcoholism and drugs that puts them on the slide and if they had those urges toward bourgeois order they wouldn't be on skid row. I do find it odd that in our (western ) society we love the idea of minimalist living and of living well on very little money,sort of like Jesus in a vague Lilies of the Field way. But anyone who is living well on a tiny income is actually viewed with suspicion. Do they have a secret undeclared income. Why are they living so much better than me seeing as im the cool one. And from politicians "these people who are happy to live on sixpence a week are subversive and dangerous,they threaten the system. By not buying into continual consumption they are not needing to "work for The Man" and thats not acceptable to us".
Bobby,
Thanks for being so honest about your life. It takes courage to write what you wrote. Below is one of my favorite passages from Churchill. I thought you might appreciate it. It was part of his 1941 eulogy for Neville Chamberlain
"The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour."
Honor matters more to me than anything. And psychopaths flourish in all economic groups.
Marxism has nothing to do with envy.
Well said. Though I do agree with David’s assessment of White Lotus (Ratliff’s dissolution became boring episode after episode), Parker Posey was a treat.
The wealthy are largely boring.
like the rest of us . . . haha!
Parker Posey was excellent.
Not the way it works. At all. Would anyone work hard just to give some parasite a 50 grand stipend? That’s exactly why communism requires force. Everyone stops working hard because who wants the fruits of their efforts taken from them? Also wealth isn’t a zero sum sum game. The more wealth, the more possibilities for wealth. The person who created something great, for which millions gave a dollar or two to acquire, can now afford to hire carpenters gardeners decorators artists and the like. Keep everyone poor by confiscating wealth and nobody has anything much. It’s only good for resentful parasites dreaming of getting the wealth of their neighbors without doing anything to earn it. (My guess is you’re too young to have any experience in the world. You think all the stuff that exists is just there. People just wake up and take it. Instead, everything you see has been built by someone hoping to make a better life.) I’m not rich in case you’re wondering. And I have observed that inherited wealth seems to make people more callous. The poor are more generous because they know what it feels like to be out in the cold.
It is like a contract and it's an interesting way to think about it. Perhaps our modern day version of "bread and circuses." But it seems to me––and perhaps this is a case of my being overly sensitive–--that the stereotypes of the wealthy as awful have become more prevalent and more pronounced. I worry that many people may not recognize that shows like White Lotus and Succession and Billions and people like Bezos and Musk are over the top and not representative and then mockery turns to hate. It's unintentional propaganda.
The example I like to point to is Sam Walton’s grandchildren. Everyone of them is or will eventually be a billionaire. I’m sure most of them are nice people, but regardless, any system that allows that degree of generational wealth accumulation and transfer is drifting toward a new feudalism. Perhaps members of the 0.1% need to be held to different behavioral standard the just being good people. In addition, you must actively work to counter the 0.1%ers that are not good people and that seek further tax reductions and additional methods to transfer generational wealth. Mere silence is complicity at those level of wealth.
This is really about YOU. Do you really CARE about poor people,some of whom are vicious and nasty. Or is that by telling everyone you care,I don't mean in this thread,that's fair you are making social comment but if you talk all the time about how much YOU CARE then that reflects well on YOU. You are a good person because you CARE. Only BAD PEOPLE don't care. Try having NO MONEY ,go and hang out with the homeless bums,you'll soon find out it's not like in the musical Oliver! " consider yerself at ome...whatever we got we share..."
Thanks Stellar for the comment. I hope it's the first of many times you comment. I don't know if it's true that the majority of the wealthy are comfortable with the level of inequality we've reached. I'm not. I know that in exit polling, those with greater than $100k in income skewed Democratic in 2024 as do those with higher educational attainment.
I think our tax system is not progressive enough which is part of the reason why we have the weakest social safety net among our peers.
I don't mean to take away the indulgence of making fun of some of the wealthy. they deserve it! And I'm sure there are times I deserve it too. But wide sweeping generalizations like the sentence I quoted about stealing are not helpful.
Finally, the wealthy that I know tend to be philanthropic and do not ignore suffering.
David, while I concur with your what you said back, what I admire most is the tenor and respect of your reply. 🙏
So what level of “progressive” taxation would be appropriate? Would it be sufficient in your view if the bottom 50% of taxpayers paid, say, 3% of federal taxes while the top 5% paid 61%? Because that’s what we have now.
Your use of the term “hoarding” bespeaks a zero-sum mindset, in which total wealth is viewed as a fixed sum, like a giant pizza, in which the wealthy, by having more, deprive the poor. Once you understand that a well-functioning market economy is a whole series of positive sum interactions, the urge to redistribute dissipates. This does not mean, of course, that all of the wealthy enhance productivity-- the private equity game, as currently played, is effectively looting. But getting rid of that requires changes to tax and bankruptcy rules, as well as some corporate law stuff, and it’s far too complex to explain to populists of either party.
I’ll also point out that White Lotus is fiction; it’s not a documentary.
It's a message from the Secret Elite who are channelling the world toward the one world government they want to place in using digital ID to control the world's population,that's us. Everything they do,they tell us first in coded form. Often as a malicious joke too. Like when they renamed COVID as OMICRON which crossword addicts quickly recognized was an anagram of Moronic,what they think of us,and none of them even bothered to refute it
Brilliant
You are right that we already have a progressive tax system. What we don't have is a sufficient tax base for a social safety net. So if everyone;s taxes went up proportionately and that extra revenue was used to pay for healthcare for everyone, for example, that would be a vast net improvement in the standard of living for much of the bottom 50%.
One of the things that bothers me about folks on the left, is that they tend to obsess over the “social safety net” but they never even seem to consider creating a scenario where people are productive enough that they don’t actually need a social safety net and can instead do well without transfer payments.
Of course, one of the easiest ways to help the folks in the bottom 50% of the income ladder is to curb illegal immigration and law skill legal immigration. But that seems to be off limits.
As to health care, again the whole emphasis is on distribution of existing resources. No attention to reducing administrative costs. With drugs, it’s all about price controls and reducing profits, with no focus on reducing intrinsic cost of manufacturing with technological improvements. It’s just a very static way of looking at the world.
My husband and I are childless by choice and have recently retired. Both of us worked our asses off for decades and retired with a pile of money, a gorgeous house on 10 acres, and no financial worries. We saved and planned for a peaceful retirement. Both sets of siblings are well educated affluent healthy and comfortable. Our parents had no financial or health issues while they were alive and when they died we inherited modest sums (less than half a years salary) which we invested. We do not have inherited wealth as you do but we recognize that our financial situation was the product of affordable colleges, Pell Grants, paid internships, and lucky connections. I spent my career in service to poor people. I still volunteer weekly at a food kitchen. I have been surrounded by poverty throughout my career and now in retirement. I’ve never been poor except when I ran away from home and was homeless for two years—but I escaped poverty through education. I think the resentment we see and hear is because my very lucky life path is virtually impossible nowadays. Colleges are prohibitively expensive, housing costs are insane, and health care is crippling any possible future savings. That’s what people are pissed at: my generation (1960s babies) had so many opportunities, we are now “leaders” and we have voted out all those social programs that led to our financial security. It doesn’t matter if we volunteer and donate and reach out to politicians. I don’t think anything will fundamentally change without a bloody revolution. Sorry to say it, but someone is going to hang in effigy, because people are righteously pissed. Luigi was a harbinger.
Ellen, I agree with this completely. The fact that the path is gone leads to confusion and despair--to an understandable sense of injustice, naturally directed at the very wealthy. What's curious to me, though, is how much we also laud the very wealthy. We still glorify them. For example--you turn on the radio and so much of the music is still about the desire for / attainment of wealth. Can there be a revolution if everybody would turn around and be a bourgeoisie if they could? I'm genuinely curious!
Don’t forget that wealthy people control all of their depictions. Crass “wealth” displays are almost always from people new to money. The stuff we hear and see in the media—the fascination with divorces of the Gates and Bezoses—are carefully curated and controlled depictions of their lives. When TV and movies depict shitty rich people, that depiction is actually just the jester in the kings castle. It allows for the steam of income inequality resentment to bleed off before the barbarians are at the gates, blowing up the whole thing. There’s a reason truly wealthy people do very little “advertising” of their lives.
Great conversation here between Isabel and Ellen. Elsewhere I wondered whether the depictions are modern day versions of bread and circuses. Does a show like White Lotus take the edge off resentment of a Millennial who has a good job but can't afford to buy a home? Or does it add to the envy?
I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Succession was perhaps it was my bread and circus as someone looking up at the billionaire class and thinking I wouldn't trade places with Logan Roy for anything.
(1) A fundamental problem is that “wealthy” is a misleading (or at least useless) term at this point. The top 0.001%, 0.01%, 0.1%, and 1%, and even 10% of income get conflated in statistics and reporting. That allows an Elon Musk to be conceived of as representative of the top 1% that includes millions of people with essentially nothing in common with him. And the hockey stick of how much more income and wealth it takes to move up each order of magnitude is hard to comprehend or remember. Moreover, income and wealth have causation and correlation relationships, but not nearly what they are given credit for, but income statistics are all that are reported.
(2) Even if “good” and “bad” people are distributed roughly evenly through our society, the “bad” with more economic power can certainly be interpreted as doing more damage to others. Bezos can cause Amazon to treat what, hundreds of thousands? of people poorly in their jobs—their daily lives. Combine this with point (1), and someone like you in the top 0.x% and a successful professional in the top 1% of income are responsible by (ludicrously off-the-mark) association.
(3) This one is harder for to articulate, but, I think there is something in the consumerism part that confuses things. That $3,500 scotch can make folks jealous for not being able to spend that or because of what they could do with the money instead, etc. There is surely some finance bro somewhere buying one this week (to use a stereotype). That is almost a relatable sort of thing to be jealous or envious of—“I can buy a drink, but not that”. And then there are things like being able to buy a sports franchise (moving that decimal point again). It all gets swirled together.
The gradations of the 1% do tend to be lost.
I just responded above that I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Succession was perhaps it was my bread and circus as someone looking up at the billionaire class and thinking I wouldn't trade places with Logan Roy for anything.
“you must at least allow the huddled masses their one indulgence - disliking you.” Lol so funny! I bet a lot of people feel this way.
How is his quality of life related to someone struggling? I don't get that.
I found David’s such a fair and balanced piece, I was shocked to find comments like this below it.
It is not up to the wealthy to send out $50,000 checks to the struggling, nor would that solve the problem. It’s up to our governments and companies who should use their profits to pay workers more and provide social benefits to their families. Wealth inequality is a failure of governance, not of the rich.
And hating the benefactors of this system will do nothing to solve it. The only thing that will: Getting involved in our workplaces to pay people more and offer better benefits programs. Starting and creating employee owned businesses. Getting involved in our local governments, chamber of commerces, and state employee ownership labs to help companies sell to employees when founders retire. Right now I’m working with a coalition to write legislation that would make the bottom half way richer through equity ownership.
If everyone who hates the rich uses that energy instead to help the poor become richer, we would all be working to fix the system instead of complaining about its bad results.
Elle, thanks for the comment. You are lighting a candle in the darkness.
I agree it's not about the wealthy writing checks to the poor, (though in certain circumstances giving startup money to invest in making a living does. Eg. Paying for a pair of goats so a person in a small village can sell milk and breed more goats, or a bicycle to bring their produce to a market that's too far away to walk, and other small startup grants or micro-loans.) But neither are the wealthy passive victims of circumstance who have no agency to create equity. Many wealthy are the business owners who can (and I argue *should* pay their employees a living wage with adequate health insurance and in some cases pension, though this would also fail to maximize profits for owners, executives, and shareholders. The wealthy absolutely have the biggest lever to lobby for change in government while the poor are often saddled with punishments for being poor, such as fines for late payments, higher health care costs, less opportunity for fair housing, so they have less time for grass-roots organizing. It's on neither group alone to create equality; both the wealthy and the poor have to participate in creating change - (yes, wealthy people often make donations to institutions, an important and impactful action) but in order to create equity in the *system* that's doing the "stealing", I believe more wealthy people would have to use their power to leverage legal change at the governmental level, and I see very little desire from that group to do so.
Very true and important, everyone who can should commit to this kind of systemic change.
Yuk. I've been down wid dem huddled masses (in UK) and stop romanticizing em. They are nasty people. That's why they are down there. Even if all the wealth in the world was shared out equally they would soon be back at the bottom of the muck heap again. They are not nicer because they are poor.
I don’t actually know any rich people personally. It has never occurred to me to generalize them, given that no other social class has any kind of uniform character. I have two people I know are rich who subscribe to me. One is on the liberal left, the other is quite rightist. I get along with both just fine.
As an experiment, I invite any rich person or group of rich people to give me several million dollars to see if it turns me evil. If it does, I’ll give it back. That’s how science works.
😂😂
If you send me a bottle of Macallan 25, I'll take your proposal under serious consideration.
David, he needs the millions first so he can buy the Macallan 25 to send you. If the Librarian could already send you the fancy scotch we wouldn’t need to do his experiment.
How about a bottle of Colt 45? That’s twenty better.
It’s for science! Its research ;)
I’m not rich enough to give you several million dollars, but I can give you $20. Will that work?
Also, I don’t have any single malt scotch, because it all tastes like gasoline to me. But I do have some Burgundy. Might that be sufficiently corrupting?
Okay, you got me. I live in an area where there is a fair amount of wealth. Our neighbors vary in friendliness, like any community. I do have a bias, though, and it’s this: wealthy people assume they’re better than me because of their wealth. They tend to talk more about themselves than to inquire about me. After all, I’m not in their league so what could we possibly have in common? One neighbor’s wife is a middle school librarian, so when we had them over for drinks on our porch, she and I spoke about our favorite children’s books and authors. It was nice. That was nearly a year ago. They’ve never invited us over. Not expecting it, they have plenty of friends and we’re new here. Fine.
I listened to an interview with Melinda French Gates, who has a memoir out and is making the rounds. She said something that really clicked for me, in response to a question about the shuttering of USAID. She said that her foundation and others like it are entrepreneurial; they’re great at field-testing ideas to see what works. And, she said, the only way to scale up a program is through government partnerships.
I wonder, David, how do you feel about the connection being made by some in the media between the dismantling of vital government functions and the optics of affording tax cuts for billionaires? It seems a stretch to connect the two, but what Ms Gates said makes me wonder —what’s the obsession with tax cuts? Government programs really do a lot of good in many areas.
The ultra-rich live within a generosity spectrum, as it were. On one extreme are those like Melinda Gates, who choose to give away vast amounts of their wealth...basically because it pleases them to do so. On the other extreme lie folks like the Waltons, heirs to the Walmart fortune, who have given away nearly none of their collectively enormous fortune.
The latter variety of ultra-rich tend to be the ones who bankroll Republican (and some Blue-dog Dem) politicians to lower taxation on capital gains, unearned income, inheritances and corporate income. These are the people that either want to preserve their existing wealth--or aggressively grow it further.
Many of these folks have fully adopted a form of social Darwinism, whereby they see themselves as inherently special, or superior, by virtue of their wealth, and/or the skills/opportunities/circumstances that facilitated its accrual. Many feel they should pay little or no taxes by virtue of all the entrepreneurial juice their wealth provides the economy; like the creation of jobs, building of factories, etc.
And they're mistaken. They don't get a pass. I want to say, with great wealth comes great responsibility, but I'm fully aware that not all people, wealthy or not, think that way. I forget who observed that the reason working-class Americans aren't more activist against the 1% is that we all secretly believe (dream / wish) we'll soon be millionaires ourselves.
You could argue that everyone is responsible for their deeds, words and thoughts. Irregardless of their current net worth. I'm a Buddhist, OK.
The bottom line is that our current Gilded Age continues apace, with the bulk of American wealth further concentrating in roughly four hundred or so families. The market concentrations that enabled such accrual also proceeds, with literally every sector of the economy dominated by either a monopoly, a duopoly or an Oligopoly. Which results in universally lower wages for 99% of employees across the board, as well as increased consumer and other costs for all American families.
There is one political party that unapologetically and unreservedly serves the interests of our financial elites despite its' populist posturing to the contrary. And a second that halfheartedly attempts some sort of balance between rich and poor. The only likely catalyst that will shake up this equation is extreme financial pain. Which the incompetence of our ruling party is likely to provide all of us in the near future.
I'm afraid that's true.
I think the shuttering of USAID was a tragedy and evil.
There are three problems with the planned budget/tax bill. it would make inequality worse, it would potentially contain a significant to Medicaid, and it would lead to bigger deficits and larger national debt burden. I'm hoping the cuts are so unpopular that it won't pass.
me too!
The projected $500 billion shortfall in the IRS 2025 take is of particular note. All due to Musk's incompetence, it completely dwarfs any of DOGE's alleged cost cuts.
The GOP is on track to deliver us a whopping $2.5 trillion budget deficit in 2025. Republican "Borrow and Spend" rule is turning out to be a fiscal disaster for our country.
I think people are not paying enough attention to this. Probably because the effects of the deficit and national debt burden will show up over time and not immediately.
This is coming off the heels of HORRENDOUS spending and over printing of money. The parties have switched. Make this make sense
Just watch FOX News for a few hundred hours straight. Everything will then make perfect sense. You'll sleep like a baby.
I don´t know about other countries, but in Germany or Switzerland there are "Leftist" (i.e. Communist/ "Socialist") parties with politicians, chair(wo)men who say frankly "I don´t know any wealthy rich person" - but then for half an hour they tell you everything about "what rich people do, how they act and how they are".
Just imagine, you told this "Socialist" ' I don' t know any immigrant from Africa, Afghanistan or Turkey, and I don´t want to know them because 'they are' ... (insults and certainties following for half an hour)".
Then these "socialists" will name you a "racist", a "misogyn", a "Hate Speecher" etc. Only "Leftists" are owners of "the truth" , know everything and are allowed to speak their "truths" which never can be "Hate Speech", they are rather able to define clearly what "Hate Speech" should be.
I, for example, was born poor to poor parents. Now I own a 1000sqm-ground with a big house & six cats and am happily married and also rent other habitations - I have worked for this all my life , I hadn´t inherited anything - and even if, all the inheritant "rich" I know keep working too and not just rarely also give money to "social causes" (apart from their taxes they have to give away which mostly also go to "social causes"):
But "Socialists" only(want to) know the "few" who "have everything" and reside in Monaco and Portofino without having done or doing anything. I know so many "rich" but not any of those the "Socialists" 'know'. You can´t do anything about it, "Socialists" always know better. That makes them so rich, their abundant knowledge.
Even if a million "Real Socialism"s would fail with hundreds of millions victims murdered, they will always cling to their "belief". No arguing possible.
Thanks for that view on European attitudes of which I know very little.
"Sarah Schulman" isn´t "European".
David, I truly appreciate your writing and enjoy and agree with many of your essays. I especially appreciate your acknowledgement of the privilege you and your family enjoy. I am not wealthy, though I have had a career in which I worked with and for wealthy people. I am a 65 year old white male and likely would not have had the career I had were it not for the privilege of my race and gender. That said, I earned my keep, and acknowledge and don’t apologize for privilege I have enjoyed.
One question on this one: you say you did not earn your wealth by immoral means. I was under the impression that, while you did have a lucrative career, you come from generational wealth. I am not suggesting that generational wealth is in and of itself immoral, or that any of your wealth was ill-gotten. I am curious how wealthy you might be if you and your wife had not inherited substantial wealth.
Thanks Steve for the question, which is a difficult one to answer. Part of my identity, like everyone's, is wrapped up in my familial origins. I was good at what I did but I got my first job through a family connection and that eventually led to the flourishing of my career. Had I been the same person without any inherited wealth I think I would have prospered because I would have taken a similar career path. Not as much perhaps.
However had I been born to a family without wealth but with my personality and traits intact, I very well might have become an academic.
I see it re: academia!
Thank you, David, for your thoughtful response. I really appreciate it, and your thoughtfulness and honesty.
Incidentally, your writing that I’ve enjoyed the most has been your stories of family and relationships. I hope that you gain a significant following among young men, who need to read of men like yourself — thoughtful, respectful and yes, successful and wealthy, as opposed to some of the jokers (a term likely too kind) getting so much attention among young men these days.
Please keep up the good work.
I am an academic at a public university nearing the end of my career and find that comment extremely ironic. I went into academia optimistically expecting a middle class livelihood in exchange for the hard work of teaching and changing lives. I still get to do the latter but have seen higher education gutted in the last 20 years, and seen my own salary shrink due to lack of and extremely low cost of living increases and so forth. I earn far less than I thought I would at this point (and I never had any grand illusions), and my institution, due to legislative defunding, crippled in what it is able to do for students. And the rich either could care less about the situation or are actively part of the defunding. It is demoralizing to be asked to work harder for less and to do more with less and less for the very people you want to help.
Thanks for the comment Stephanie. I do care that our universities are under attack. And part of that is squeezing the teachers. The damage will be severe and it will be somewhat hidden because how do you measure a person's ability to flourish intellectually? It's not GDP.
America has a long history of undervaluing teachers. I remember reading Richard Hofstatder's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and seeing that consistent thread for the first time.
Thank you for that.
What is the opposite to this line of thinking? I used to ascribe to it. I listened to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey and others and thought, how amazing to be a philanthropist. Maybe it is social media that has "icked" out the world to the top 1%. Seeing beautiful people standing in front of his and hers Gulf Stream jets does tend to skew the feeling about the 1%. I think the author wants us to deny the lack of reality this presents to those people in the 99% that don't own a jet and have 1 million instagram followers. And to say these people who own dual jets are "not awful" (using the byline) seems hard for me to get behind. Maybe I want to demonize them. I guess I am struggling to find why this person has such "worth" in the world based on their "worth$". This article is a total mind-FXXk for sure. So for that reason, it will ruminate in my not 1% brain.
Sorry, KTon, that this post has burrowed in your head! I'd agree with you about the people on social media who are posting themselves doing or owning cliched rich people things. They should be reviled for their obtuseness. My point is that they are the visible exception.
Those are not real rich people. Real wealth is discreet. You might see the Duke of Beaufort and think it was the gardener and such. In some circumstances. All that champagne and gold taps shows on tv (I don't have a tv) is nonsense. But I'm talking to one who already knows!
I have read an analysis by a serious financial journalist but I can't quote it verbatim but the rich like Melinda Gates and others are giving away NOTHING. That is ,and it's too complex for me to explain,these philanthropic trusts are so set up and managed that even if they give say,an African country $45million and that sounds impressive and caring,somehow the money is still there. They can "give it away" but still have it. If I understood how it worked I wouldn't be who I am wondering where my next ticket to Paris is coming from. And another objection to this private philanthropy is that is has the potential to be politically weighted and in the most notorious Oligarchs it is,in fact glaringly so now. But even when it's more opaque these huge sums of money can influence who has political control in an African or Asian country and it's not going to be anyone who doesn't favour the wealth path of the kind disinterested givers.
This is how it works : their money is invested and when you have that much money, it’s hard to give money away as fast as your money makes money. The S&P 500, a popular benchmark for stock market performance, has returned an average of 8.87% per year over the past 20 years. 8.8% of 30 billion is 2.6 billion. So the first year, assuming the market returns the average, you are making 2.6 BILLION DOLLARS by doing nothing. The second year, you are making 8.8% on 32.6 billion (2,868,800,000) Over time, with compound interest, the rich get richer EXTREMELY fast. Melinda gates is trying to give money away very fast but her org has to do due diligence and follow the law. People are using this same principle of market returns and the power of compound interest to FIRE (financial independence /retire early) on surprisingly small amounts of money. However with the way the market is going no one knows if that will work over the next two decades! We will see.
Thank you for this explanation. No one teaches us this sort of thing. But maybe if you're not canny enough to work it out for yourself there is no point in telling you. Maybe our state education systems see it that way!
The writer you referenced may have been discussing other methods like charitable remainder trusts, which earmark assets for a charity LATER while still giving income to original owners or their beneficiaries NOW, or charitable lead trusts, which allow charities to receive income from assets NOW but return the remainder back to original owner later. Both of these have tax incentives that may make this an attractive option for the wealthy.
I believe basic finance should be a class in every high school. If more people truly knew about the incredible power of compound interest, I think people would save more money early in life because they would understand how powerful it is. The median household income is the US is $80,610. Retirement wisdom tells us we need 10x our income at retirement. That would be $800,610 for the median household. With contributions of $2,500 annually from age 20 to 30, followed by contributions starting at $2,500 at age 30 and increasing by 5% each year until age 67, with a 7% annual return, you could potentially have approximately $911,659.54 by age 67. With a max contribution of $ $4,241.84 at
age 67. This is WITHOUT any matching from an employer. We really need to do whatever we can to support young people so they can save save save early, with education about this, free healthcare, deferred loan paybacks, etc and so on. Yes saving that much money between ages 20-30 is difficult but people also have the most energy they will EVER HAVE for side hustles, they are surrounded by other people who are living moderately, etc. It’s much easier than catching up in your 40’s which is honestly nearly impossible. If you don’t begin retirement saving until age 40 you would need to contribute $14,378 a year until 67 to get to 800k. That would be difficult for most people! The axiom “time in the market beats timing the market” needs to be beat into the head of every 23 year old man logging into wallstreetbets.
Finance and ECONOMICS! Big difference between the two, though symbiotic.
This study suggests that wealth can make people less kind/courteous. It’s only one study and I don’t think it’s been repeated so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140520300359
Obviously, “not all wealthy people,” but a statistically significant percentage nevertheless.
That said, I’ve had the opportunity to interact closely with people across the wealth spectrum, including the exceedingly wealthy, and my conclusion is similar to yours. There are some really annoying wealthy people, but it’s not the rule.
Dan, that's an interesting study. There;s a study using the game Monopoly where the game is rigged in favor of one player. As that player gets richer in the game they become more aggressive.
That tracks. I personally recall something similar when I was a kid playing Risk--another winner takes all game.
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.
Thank you F. Scott Khashogi!
Iconic quote
This must’ve been a vulnerable piece to write for you, and I applaud the willingness to delve into such a tendentious subject (judging by some of the comments, the flame wars are just beginning!)
One important aspect of the disdain for the Uber wealthy, I think, is what is at least often perceived as their *general* disinterest in interacting with the average world, so to speak. It’s always amazed me that the stereotype of a millionaire would prefer a stuffy bar with white linen table cloths and a lot of finance bros around them than a dive bar where young artists and old regulars and everything in between are drinking honest priced drinks. For me, that’s where my knee-jerk feeling of resentment comes from, in the (perhaps mythological?) idea that the wealthier people are, the less interested they are interacting (in a genuine way) with those who have far less than them, which is at least 99% of the population.
Thanks Samuel for the comment. That's a fair criticism. And it brings to mind the recent proliferation of private clubs that have high initiation and annual fees and then members still pay for the food and drink. That's totally exclusionary. That's worse than the white linen table cloth restaurant/bar.
Everything's relative in NYC but I'd rather go to a casual place any time.
I do not belong to any of the NYC private clubs for many reasons. But here's an example of one to give you an idea.
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/it-will-cost-you-125-000-to-join-this-new-private-co-working-club-080522
My opinion of the wealthy… I’m not necessarily sure this piece changes it, though I always appreciate your point of view and your writing. Thank you.
I’ve spent the past nearly 30 years living in the UK and France, returning home to the US to be close to family (on the dawn of this presidency that most Europeans -counting myself as One- thought impossible to occur). As I re-enter The American Way, and Capitalism in the raw, I find myself not angry at ‘the wealthy’, but at the systems that allow this to happen at the neglect of the poor and middle classes. What I observe as ‘Conservatism’ and oft the preferred stance of those holding enough wealth, is an innate belief that ‘everyone’ can, so they should. Can = achieve gainful employment that pays their household bills AND healthcare AND savings, education, healthcare. The numbers don’t add up. The thinking is maligned.
In fact, not ‘everyone’ can. Many are born into situations that are virtually inescapable, devoid of the real foundational help needed for seismic change to cut the cords of generational trauma or belief systems. Many are born without the intellect or with seen or unseen ‘handicaps’ and hurdles that make daily life a difficult task. They just are. Adding insult to injury, when a government is meant to govern and -in my opinion- look after the people (ALL the people), and it doesn’t… and the people are told that ‘the wealthy effect’ will trickle down… it doesn’t. It never has. Or, the trickle is akin to the ‘wealthy’ choosing the industries, people or causes that they relate to. In my experience, the happiest cultures are those where social democracy is the norm. Where everyone matters and everyone pays into the pot… to support those that otherwise cannot. So, until wealthy is untied from conservatism, I feel this spotlight that is being shown on ‘the wealthy’ is more due to the tone-deaf nature of conservatism more than anything else.
Thanks Abby for the comment. Personally I agree with you about European social democracy being a far more humane, fair, and moral system. And it upsets me when I hear a wealthy person make the false assumption that "anyone" can achieve what you listed. Of course it's not true and it's a wealth justification.
What I'm not sure about is the link between wealth people and the poverty of our social safety net. We're in a bizarre political moment in many ways, including that the party that seems to have convinced the majority of the working class to vote for them is now enacting policies that will hurt their working class voters.
One thing that upset me about the sentence I quoted from the NYT is that the 1% are in the best position to give to the Democratic Party and I believe that the 1% gave just as much to Harris as they did to Biden although it's hard to prove. So to say that the tent is not big enough for those who can contribute is self-defeating.
David David, I like the concept of the European social democracy… but it’s on the brink of collapse. Unaffordable. And what we think they have is sometimes distorted.
Diana, is it possible that the immigration inundation of Europe ( NATO now stands for "North African Tourism Omnivore" ) is what is killing off social democracy in Europe?
There’s a limit to how many people countries can take.
Thanks David. I've had a look back at the article in detail and thought it interesting that that point about the 1% came at the very, very end. It would be interesting to see where Schulman would go with this seemingly throwaway comment... I don't agree in the 'stealing' part as I don't believe the wealthy believe they are stealing and I think 'to steal' is an active state. I doubt very much any 'wealthy people' are knowingly stealing from the people with lower incomes. I believe there is enough wealth for everyone.
It is the governments role (IMHO) to provide, regulate and distribute the wealth, not the people's nor the 'free markets' role... and I feel that the 2-party system in the US no longer functions. It's too easy to blame the other side. When we look to govts in the UK for example, they have hundreds of parties, but 8 large ones and 3-4 that run a close call... and often, in very close elections, 2 parties will come together and form a Coalition to achieve majority and then govern together, for a number of years even. The system allows for conflict and consultation and agreement. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about how our US govt actually works, I just have been witnessing it falling apart... and wondering why we don't work to change 2 party (and remove the Blame Game)
However, I find the title of the article and 'why now is the time to stand up to people you oppose' more interesting than any of it. Should we really? Stand up to everyone we oppose? Gosh. Seems like more blaming and less birds-eye-viewing. If we follow the thread of Trumpers wanting less govt and for govt to be run like a business... then I suggest bringing in some of the great business consultants as well as leadership consultants to noodle away on a new approach,
Thanks for bringing up worthwhile subjects and healthy comments.
Thanks Abby. Parties have collapsed and divided before in American history. There is nothing in the constitution about parties so there might be a way to accommodate more than two but the states regulate the elections so I think it would have to be state by state.
But how impoverished _is_ our social safety net? We actually seem over abundant in distorted ways. The biggest challenges of the poor are actually obesity and substance abuse. People from all over the world will completely deplete their cash savings to come and be poor in America.
Oh! One more thing on this… interesting that today’s e-news from ‘The Knowledge’ (UK daily) ended on a similar ‘hate wealth’ tone as well…
https://www.theknowledge.com/
I’ll copy below since I don’t think the email from today will be uploaded to site yet, due to line Easter holiday in UK.
(Sharing from ‘The Knowledge’ 🇬🇧)
“Getting the rich wrong
Almost every dramatisation of the uber-rich depicts them as “monstrous”, says Rowan Pelling in The Daily Telegraph. From the utterly loathsome Roy family in Succession to the Barbara Hutton biopic Poor Little Rich Girl, we’re invited to view those with pots of money as “inadequate, unhappy people”. Poverty-stricken characters such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’ Pip and Anthony Trollope’s Septimus Harding, meanwhile, are invariably portrayed as “far kinder than the affluent folk who surround them”. It’s a comforting emotional panacea for the less fortunate: the idea that poverty somehow renders people “morally superior”. But it’s not true.
A new study drawing on data gleaned from more than two million people across 60 societies has concluded that rich citizens are more inclined than hard-up ones to involve themselves in good causes. “This makes perfect sense to me.” Few things are harder than being strapped for cash. My husband has been notably “fractious” since he started taking his state pension and can no longer splurge £25 on a hardback copy of, say, Tom Holland’s Dominion. As the sole wage-earner in a household of four, I’m now distinctly stingier with my charitable donations. Meanwhile, my better-heeled pals are “pillars of their local communities”, working with countless charities and joining litter-picking taskforces. And Britain’s well-known families with considerable fortunes “tirelessly lubricate every part of society” – our great arts institutions would collapse if it weren’t for the Sainsburys and the Gettys. As for anyone consoling themselves that these folk must be miserable, whenever I’ve met such figures they’ve appeared entirely content and well-balanced. Let’s face it, the capacity for munificence makes you happy, while “penny-pinching makes you a misery-guts”. “
Thanks Abby for sharing.
Lots of crap about Europe. They have welcomed the Islamist terrorists with
Open arms. The “honeymoon” won’t last forever. I’ll stay here and help us deal with our own mess.
Thank you for this perspective, David. While you may generally believe your wealth wasn’t accumulated immorally, I’m making a vast assumption that your generational wealth is tied up in trusts and investments, of which many grow and deliver dividends on the backs of poor people and, sometimes, catastrophic events that have an outsized impact on poorer communities yet benefit the companies in which you’re invested.
This may not be true for your investments if you have done your diligence to avoid these scenarios. However, many wealthy individuals look more at the bottom line than the dirty business that drives it.
Thanks Jessica. I try to avoid investing in things that take advantage of the poor but I can't say my lifetime record is pure, especially when I was younger and not as aware of the issue of poverty.
I now believe it is my obligation to support causes that help people who are in poverty. not as contrition but because it's the right thing to do.
This is an interesting article, but it focuses mostly on spending and behavior, not on production of wealth. The claim that the 1% get rich by stealing reveals a certain mindset — the idea that economic wealth is a zero-sum game, where if you have more, I must have less. If there is a fixed pie, like a giant pizza, then of course if you have a bigger slice I must have a smaller one.
But a modern capitalist economy is not a zero-sum game; it’s a positive-sum game where new wealth is created. Both of the rich guys you single out got rich by creating something new. Musk took a flailing and likely soon to be bankrupt electric car company and made the first really practical electric car, and then he perfected aspects of rocket technology that allowed him to dramatically reduce the cost of sending stuff to space.
Bezos created Amazon, which changes the way we buy stuff. I can now take an entire library with me on vacation, thanks to Jeff Bezos.
We are all richer because of the enterprises that Bezos and Musk created.
In both cases, I’d argue their wealth accumulation was morally achieved. That said, I don’t condone Musk’s decision to have 14 children with 4 different women. But there are poor people who do that too! And at least Musk is providing for them financially.
As for Bezos, I don’t condone his extramarital affair— for which he paid a lot. But nor do I condemn him for getting fit. This is somewhat personal— I experienced some health issues in my 50s, and this caused me to embark on a fitness regimen that resulted in noticeable change, though not quite as swole as Bezos.
Nor do I condemn him for giving his girlfriend a joyride in a very short range spaceship. If I owned a spaceship and it was safe, I’d sure take joyrides in it! But what I find ludicrous is the idea that this made these ladies astronauts or space pioneers.
Now. Macallan 25. It’s a single malt scotch aged in sherry barrels for 25 years. I found it listed online for $2,500, so you can probably get it for less. I wouldn’t buy it because scotch, single malt or otherwise, is not to my taste. People who buy it don’t guzzle it like beer or even wine, or if they do it’s not for long, as it’s 40% alcohol.
However, for true aficionados of scotch, if they can afford it, I don’t see what’s wrong with drinking the stuff. I mean, I am a wine aficionado— I actually have a home wine cellar. If someone offered me a glass of Romanee-Conti Grand Cru, which goes for north of $20,000 a bottle, I’d drink it. Very slowly.
Now, I don’t buy Romanee-Conti, or pretty much any Grand Cru Burgundy, because I don’t care to spend thousands of dollars on a bottle of wine. But to me it’s a matter of prudent financial management, not some sort of moral issue. If I were ten times as rich as a I am now, I probably would. Because I really like good wine.
However, I wouldn’t drink it at a barbecue, because it’s unlikely to pair well with any of the dishes prepared at that type of meal. And, as a certified Wine Snob, creating a perfect pairing is absolutely mandatory. But I might drink it just as a drink, or paired with any food appropriately served with Pinot Noir.
In 1993, Scott and Bezos married. The following year, they left D. E. Shaw, moved to Seattle, and Bezos founded Amazon with Scott's support. Scott was one of Amazon's early key contributors, and was heavily involved in Amazon's early days, working on the company's name, business plan, accounts, shipping early orders,[17][8] and negotiating the company's first freight contract.[8] After 1996, Scott took a less involved role in the business, focusing on her literary career and family.
If you only value money over honor and personal integrity, I suppose paying a fine is some way to feel absolved.
Mackenzie didn't need a pay out. She went to Princeton and has an American book award. She worked on the company in her own right as illustrated above. She got what she was owed.
Thank you.
I’m not complaining about the divorce settlement. I said I didn’t condone his extramarital affair. I’m against cheating on your wife (or husband).
I wish he hadn’t cheated, but I’m glad he created Amazon.
I don't know if im happy he created Amazon. The quality of everything has decreased since addiction to fast cheap everything. The quality of life seems to have gotten worse since Amazon.
Also, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyễn, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe went into space on that flight. Unfortunately, even today, women have to do what they can to accomplish their goals.
The one percent is largely white and male. It can be viewed as frivolous sending women in to space, but just because Amanda is attractive shouldn’t detract from The fact she’s a Harvard educated space research girlie.
I’m glad Bezos and Scott created Amazon but what makes me angry is that Amazon doesn’t pay their employees equitably. The company would still be profitable if they paid employees an actual living wage and didn’t subject them to horrible work conditions. And it’s definitely not necessary to illegally suppress union formation.
Thanks Pete. Yes, I glided over the positive aspects of what Musk and Bezos have done. I just wish they would recognize that they have great influence as role models and take that into account when they behave certain ways.
Thanks a swell for the wine education.
If she is saying that the largely white male 1 percent is causing the problem, she could be using wealth instead of saying white male.
The google is saying 82 percent of the 1 percent are white males. DEI has disappeared at the hands of this administration for a reason. Are white men trying to protect their status? Is she using wealth instead of race and gender because she will be immediately discredited if she says wealthy white males?
Interesting Lizzybv. It was the "stealing" part of the quote that got to me.
It is very offensive, especially to hard working families that made their money and helped others get extremely wealthy along the way.
That said, I had to look deeper. She is a woman well educated and her last name could infer a religious affiliation. I am probably reading more into this than necessary.
I suppose there a cultural identity with in the one percent in the US that needs to be ignited.
I am hoping to find the dm button to further explain my thought. I am flattered that you responded to my comment.
I like to read every comment. They give me added perspective and sometimes ideas on what to write about.
I appreciated this take. The closing quote from the hairdresser really captures the impossible position the wealthy are in when it comes to expressing either joy or sorrow. Joy makes them seem enviable, unrelatable, and lacking perspective. Sorrow makes them seem ungrateful, out of touch—and still lacking perspective.
I understand the collective impulse to indulge in a hatred of the wealthy, because for many, it makes their own lives feel more palatable. Perhaps the wealthy are no better or worse than any other economic class—but I do think wealth can shift your perspective in ways that make you less attuned to the struggles most people face.
A lot of wealth today is inconspicuous, so most people are forming opinions based on what they see on social media—Bezos, the Kardashians, or people buying Pateks and drinking the 25, lol. That said, I also think most people aren’t adequately morally tested in a lifetime. Wealth, by its nature, forces those tests—early and often. It presents ongoing choices around generosity, responsibility, entitlement, and fairness. So it’s easy for others to speak from a purely ideological or theoretical place, without ever having to live those dilemmas themselves.
It also raises the question of whether to hate the player or the system. Focus too much on the player and you risk fostering a world where basic rights hinge on someone else’s generosity. Focus too much on the system and you let individuals off the hook, blaming something entrenched and amorphous instead.
I’m also struck by how much perceptions of wealth vary culturally. In America, it’s still largely celebrated, even when the admiration is thinly veiled. Most of the people dominating public consciousness are rich. But in other countries—England, for instance—“posh” often feels like an insult.
Ultimately, I think people simplify their complicated feelings about wealth—wanting it, resenting it, not wanting to admit they want it—by villainizing the rich. Sometimes, that critique is valid and necessary. But other times, it serves as a convenient illusion—an easy way to avoid confronting their own contradictions or moral positioning.
Thanks Sophie for the comment, which is very nuanced. I wrestle with what you wrote below and I think the more morally successful approach is to focus on changing the system. But right now we are moving in the opposite direction.
"It also raises the question of whether to hate the player or the system. Focus too much on the player and you risk fostering a world where basic rights hinge on someone else’s generosity. Focus too much on the system and you let individuals off the hook, blaming something entrenched and amorphous instead."
But why should all the obligation be one way. Surely recipients of welfare should also have a responsible attitude. Not everyone of working age can participate in the workplace. Either due to caring duties at home and I mean serious as for a disabled child or a housebound elderly parent or some people genuinely cannot cope with the propinquity of other people and now lighthouses are automated there are just no jobs where that person can work solitary with no contact with others (which would be weird anyway). I think that if a person is or intends to live long term on welfare then they should have a duty not to waste their small income on drugs and booze,not to bring a strong of babies into the world,and to keep their homes clean and tidy. Of course this will never work as it is alcoholism and drugs that puts them on the slide and if they had those urges toward bourgeois order they wouldn't be on skid row. I do find it odd that in our (western ) society we love the idea of minimalist living and of living well on very little money,sort of like Jesus in a vague Lilies of the Field way. But anyone who is living well on a tiny income is actually viewed with suspicion. Do they have a secret undeclared income. Why are they living so much better than me seeing as im the cool one. And from politicians "these people who are happy to live on sixpence a week are subversive and dangerous,they threaten the system. By not buying into continual consumption they are not needing to "work for The Man" and thats not acceptable to us".