Really enjoyed reading this, especially as you framed it with reflections from your own wealth envy. I have miles of thoughts to share (my family growing up struggled with unemployment and when we paid our bills, well that was the good month!), but in my 20s I started getting a front row seat to many of my best friend’s money stories (she is now an accomplished CFP and CEO in the financial planning space).
Anyways, I think the thing that struck me probably around age 28 or 29 was that it seemed the pattern for folks who had never experienced ease around money (let’s say “ease” is not worrying about what day of the month the rent is debited from your account) is that the stress of not having money made the “having money” the easy solution to EVERYTHING, financial or otherwise.
To your point above, just having more money without say the gratitude (or awareness of how to relate with it healthfully), can turn into a real mess too. It’s almost as if we hope that the more money we have the less we will feel ill at ease in life in general. Put more bluntly, when my own financial situation changed I realized that I had hoped money would help me stop feeling sad things completely — like I assumed people with millions upon millions did as well. (Anonymous anecdotes from my friend’s clients would also point this out to me. A large part of her role is helping them define their life in terms of inner and relational and experiential satisfaction, not just the dollar amount growing in certain accounts.)
Anyways. Great food for thought here, clearly as I’ve jumped around! Thanks again.
It's interesting what 'floats our boat'. I somehow lack a consumer gene – and wonder why you wanted all that wealth. Was it for what it could buy or how you ranked in other people's eyes? But perhaps others will ask why I never did want it. I read Bonfire of the Vanities and it never once occurred to me to compare the absurd lifestyle described with my own. And I went to a private school full of seriously rich girls (Rockefellers, Lehmans and other names littered the class lists) but I never aspired to be in their league financially. I didn't have a specific ambition, but I wanted to be seen to be good at whatever I ended up doing (and I think I eventually got there) and to have an interesting life (yes, definitely did). I appreciate how honest you are, David (I share the same quality),so I am not remotely saying my ambitions were better than yours but it is interesting to have a conversation with someone who is so smart and so honest and so different.
Interesting question. As a young man I felt a little sorry for the wealthy people knew and worked for because it seemed to me, they never had time to enjoy their wealth and success. As I grew older however I became increasingly jealous and distraught because no matter how hard I worked, I could not seem to achieve success that compared with theirs. Now, at 65, I regret the time wasted thinking about it all. So many of those people have come to bad ends. Health problems, family disasters, etc. Their success and money didn't save them from life. I wonder if they ever think about that?
Very interesting read and it really made me pause and be reflective on my own feelings of wealth envy.
I think as a teacher, who is married to another teacher, we both can easily fall into feelings of wealth envy. We live paycheck to paycheck and when that monthly panic comes around about "are we going to make it to next payday?" it is hard to find the gratitude for what we have. It is still important, of course, but holy hell is it hard. Add on to that the guilt of indulging in a night out together and the regret we feel when we realize it has left us with dollars in the bank account until next month, or the unexpected expense of a medical bill and my gratitude is nowhere to be seen.
That isn't to say that I should NOT be grateful. We live a comfortable life. We have a nice home and some nice things and while it is tight, we find a way to make our budget work. We have a home filled with love and that is a priceless thing. We are doing just fine in our lower middle-class pocket, I guess, depending on how you define "fine".
How often have we told ourselves, "It could be worse."? That is kind of a midwestern mantra out here in the prairie. It's how we remind ourselves to suck it up and keep moving forward.
When we are constantly bombarded with an awareness of what the wealthy are doing, thanks to social media and nonstop news cycles, it feels incredibly easy to slip into wealth envy. It feels inevitable that we begin comparing ourselves to "the Haves". Whereas when you don't have enough left over every month to even put into savings finding the gratitude becomes very difficult.
Still, it could be worse. But...couldn't it also be better?
I'm word vomiting and truthfully, I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say in all of this. I suppose it is just that this was a great read and has provoked a lot of thought, so thank you for that. I have enjoyed what I have read in the comments so far as well. It's been an interesting morning to so deeply contemplate this topic and its effect on me over my cup of coffee. I guess to answer your question, yeah, it certainly has negatively impacted me. Now, if you'll pardon me I've got to go do some research on Italy.
Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for good reason.
I sometimes wonder if we identified a way to eliminate poverty but it would require the further accentuation of economic inequality would Americans go for it. Sadly, I suspect not.
-- David, your adept exploration of crucial facts with clarity is commendable. Balancing conflicting truths is a universal challenge. I often contemplate whether the roots of this global reality are embedded in the ideas implanted in our minds daily. Is there truly a way out? xo.
Isn’t it likely that Kirsten Powers is embellishing her quality of life on social media (Substack)? I think we misunderstand the wealth gap. I don’t hear about people begrudging Jeff Bezos his wealth. Post-WW2 American dominance and globalization made it possible for corporations to achieve gigantic scale and still be led by one person. What is the historic equivalent of a Ken Langone or Larry Fink? It’s possible that the wealth gap that really matters is the one between gradations of middle class. People who are visible to us, even across the street, are more likely to stir envy. That’s why I don’t believe a more progressive tax code is the answer. For example, our obsession with expensive and valueless credentials (i.e. college), only stigmatizes people who are less fortunate, or too shrewd to take on debt that can’t be repaid. I bet that is more harmful than the missed opportunity to increase taxes and spend the money subsidizing Tesla.
There are studies to show that happiness correlates with perceived rank rather than wealth. (See eg Boyce et al , Money and Happiness: Rank of Income, Not Income, Affects Life Satisfaction (2010)). In other words, most people would be happier with less absolute $$ yet be wealthier than their neighbors, than have more absolute $$ yet be worse off compared to neighbors. (Another, maybe only slightly related yet also interesting study posits that the ideal income for "life satsifaction", which is the social science term for happiness I suppose, falls between $75,000 and $105,000 per year.) I imagine that there are NO studies showing that when a certain (very high) level of wealth is attained, the envy factor dissipates.
Got a couple of observations here. First, Wolfe was totally dishonest in the book. Sherman McCoy was originally going to be writer...an Elaine's denizen, someone I knew...but he discovered that no one cared what happened to a writer, so he changed it and made McCoy the most ridiculous caricature of a Wall Street schmuck that he could. I was working on the Street when it came out and everyone I knew just roared at how idiotic the portrait was. When, for example, the detectives come to McCoy's apartment and he gets flustered and gives himself away... Pul-eeze! Anyone in that position would have had his high priced lawyer on the phone in a heartbeat and from there, the whole story collapses.
This isn't trivial for two reasons. Wolfe intended to provoke a perverse sort of envy, aware that people have ALWAYS envied wealth. During the Gilded Age, JP Morgan essentially bailed out the United States government by himself. But the Gilded Age also coincided with the anarchist movement...which was spurred by income inequality...and the seeds of what would become the Russian Revolution. Income inequality was also the spur to the French Revolution, which was begun not by the poor but by those who were actually not that bad off.
So you're actually discussing a phenomenon that is likely as old as is the human species. Where things get dangerous...as they are becoming in the United States...is when income inequality becomes so acute and so public that those on the lower end, although they may be getting by okay, become so angry that they want to tear the system down. The super rich can prevent that by being a bit more subtle in their conspicuous consumption, but they never are.
Another fine piece btw. Starting to really look forward to waking up on Saturday AM and seeing the little substack chevron on my phone announcing a new DR posting!
Wow. You covered a lot of ground. Forgive me if I’m long.
Your inherent discomfort with BS – it’s one of the things that makes your essays so darn good.
The wealth gap - while of great importance and in constant need of attention, is not as stark as it’s often portrayed because the value of government support programs that provide income, housing, food, healthcare, cell phones/service, service, etc. are often not included in the measure.
Kristen Power’s essay - I found much to disagree with. It seems to be more of a comparison of city life vs. small town/rural life than one of American life vs. Italian life. The Hallmark channel is loaded with movies about people with high flying but soul crushing jobs that find love and happiness in a small town with good people. She also seems to have a very impressionistic view of life in Italy. Most Italians I know (Rome/Florence) have as many or more deep concerns about life in Italy as Kirsten has about life in America. Most importantly, I think that there is a certain lack of self awareness and humility in complaining about capitalism in America while buying ten acres outside of Venice, having dinner with friends who live half the year in Italy and half the year in the states, complaining about taxes, referencing your therapist, and suggesting that the produce in Italy is so superior to anything that can found in the entire United Sates.
The loud ring of truth – “But until then, one simple, obvious, and decent step is for the wealthy (or faux wealthy) to stop using social media to display lifestyles unavailable to most Americans. And instead for the wealthy to understand that they have an outsized influence and thus an outsized responsibility to behave with decency.”
So much of what ails us could be cured with a liberal dose of humility.
On today's assignment, "Have you now or in the past been negatively affected by invidious comparisons of wealth?" I have a couple of quick responses. My answer is no, I don't think so. First, I was never motivated by money. The downside to that, is that while I was able to pay my way as I needed to, I never made a lot of money, despite probably having the necessary potential. Well, downside? By some measures, I suppose so. But I'm happy with my life and there were other mistakes I made that were far more important than money. Second, I just never saw celebrities as special. They benefited from our economic system but that did not make them special. This may trace back to my father being a rabbi and me being aware that clergy were not necessarily special people. I saw my rabbi naked. I heard my rabbi belch. I heard him laugh. He was as human as we all are, and I knew that all the clergy were human. They all put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. Today's celebrities are the same. Those who are parents are no better, or worse, parents than the rest of us due to their circumstance. Their wealth does not guarantee happiness, nor does it make happiness unattainable. Stuff. They can afford more stuff. So? Will one of their kids donate a kidney if they need one? That is a question of love, not money. So, what they have does not matter to me.
Now, do we need changes to our system? Of course. Unfortunately, the disproportionate concentration of wealth also creates a disproportionate concentration of power, reducing the democratic forces that are foundational to our society.
(I've been repeatedly distracted while writing this so I hope it is cogent, but if not, well some days are like this.)
David--once again, thank you for making these abstract and consequential issues so personal and specific. We spent most of our 30s on the UES with 2 kids in private school and even though we should've felt prosperous, we always felt like the poorest folks in the room. (Though I've since learned we were not alone in that misbelief.) As you illustrate, the most insidious thing about that system is the shame that lives in private darkness--"we are not doing as well as ..." It keeps us chronically unsatisfied and perpetually dogged by a sense of less-than. The irony is, if we were all a bit more open, we'd see we're doing great, actually--and there are a variety of measures to consider, well beyond the dollar signs. Which is why your work is of such value.
The other point I want to consider is, at what point does the private competition that drives this machine become maladaptive? Certainly we feel it collectively--the gutting of the American middle-class; the spoiling of the planet in our thirst for more STUFF. But also for the individual: I've come to believe that when we motivate ourselves through the internalized rat-race, the ceiling of what we can achieve is much lower than it would be if we were motivated by richer, intrinsic desires. I think about this a lot now that I have kids. How do I motivate them to work and care? Compassion, empathy, satisfaction in their own competence as a driver of confidence are front and center for me and my husband. Whether this translates to a Classic 7 will (I hope) be beyond the point.
So maybe, to circle back on the theme you and I discussed a couple of essays ago, our boys will evolve beyond my husband and me in their social/ emotional development so they see that those status symbols don't mean so much, anyway.
Really enjoyed reading this, especially as you framed it with reflections from your own wealth envy. I have miles of thoughts to share (my family growing up struggled with unemployment and when we paid our bills, well that was the good month!), but in my 20s I started getting a front row seat to many of my best friend’s money stories (she is now an accomplished CFP and CEO in the financial planning space).
Anyways, I think the thing that struck me probably around age 28 or 29 was that it seemed the pattern for folks who had never experienced ease around money (let’s say “ease” is not worrying about what day of the month the rent is debited from your account) is that the stress of not having money made the “having money” the easy solution to EVERYTHING, financial or otherwise.
To your point above, just having more money without say the gratitude (or awareness of how to relate with it healthfully), can turn into a real mess too. It’s almost as if we hope that the more money we have the less we will feel ill at ease in life in general. Put more bluntly, when my own financial situation changed I realized that I had hoped money would help me stop feeling sad things completely — like I assumed people with millions upon millions did as well. (Anonymous anecdotes from my friend’s clients would also point this out to me. A large part of her role is helping them define their life in terms of inner and relational and experiential satisfaction, not just the dollar amount growing in certain accounts.)
Anyways. Great food for thought here, clearly as I’ve jumped around! Thanks again.
David, this is such an important topic. I always appreciate your honesty and willingness to help us walk through the muck of tough realities.
It’s often hard for us to hold two opposing truths at one -- I know that the economy is doing well, but I also know people who are suffering.
Also, I’ve more than once been tempted to pack up everything and move to Italy when they post old, abandoned homes going for $1.
It's interesting what 'floats our boat'. I somehow lack a consumer gene – and wonder why you wanted all that wealth. Was it for what it could buy or how you ranked in other people's eyes? But perhaps others will ask why I never did want it. I read Bonfire of the Vanities and it never once occurred to me to compare the absurd lifestyle described with my own. And I went to a private school full of seriously rich girls (Rockefellers, Lehmans and other names littered the class lists) but I never aspired to be in their league financially. I didn't have a specific ambition, but I wanted to be seen to be good at whatever I ended up doing (and I think I eventually got there) and to have an interesting life (yes, definitely did). I appreciate how honest you are, David (I share the same quality),so I am not remotely saying my ambitions were better than yours but it is interesting to have a conversation with someone who is so smart and so honest and so different.
Interesting question. As a young man I felt a little sorry for the wealthy people knew and worked for because it seemed to me, they never had time to enjoy their wealth and success. As I grew older however I became increasingly jealous and distraught because no matter how hard I worked, I could not seem to achieve success that compared with theirs. Now, at 65, I regret the time wasted thinking about it all. So many of those people have come to bad ends. Health problems, family disasters, etc. Their success and money didn't save them from life. I wonder if they ever think about that?
Great piece as usual,
John
Very interesting read and it really made me pause and be reflective on my own feelings of wealth envy.
I think as a teacher, who is married to another teacher, we both can easily fall into feelings of wealth envy. We live paycheck to paycheck and when that monthly panic comes around about "are we going to make it to next payday?" it is hard to find the gratitude for what we have. It is still important, of course, but holy hell is it hard. Add on to that the guilt of indulging in a night out together and the regret we feel when we realize it has left us with dollars in the bank account until next month, or the unexpected expense of a medical bill and my gratitude is nowhere to be seen.
That isn't to say that I should NOT be grateful. We live a comfortable life. We have a nice home and some nice things and while it is tight, we find a way to make our budget work. We have a home filled with love and that is a priceless thing. We are doing just fine in our lower middle-class pocket, I guess, depending on how you define "fine".
How often have we told ourselves, "It could be worse."? That is kind of a midwestern mantra out here in the prairie. It's how we remind ourselves to suck it up and keep moving forward.
When we are constantly bombarded with an awareness of what the wealthy are doing, thanks to social media and nonstop news cycles, it feels incredibly easy to slip into wealth envy. It feels inevitable that we begin comparing ourselves to "the Haves". Whereas when you don't have enough left over every month to even put into savings finding the gratitude becomes very difficult.
Still, it could be worse. But...couldn't it also be better?
I'm word vomiting and truthfully, I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say in all of this. I suppose it is just that this was a great read and has provoked a lot of thought, so thank you for that. I have enjoyed what I have read in the comments so far as well. It's been an interesting morning to so deeply contemplate this topic and its effect on me over my cup of coffee. I guess to answer your question, yeah, it certainly has negatively impacted me. Now, if you'll pardon me I've got to go do some research on Italy.
Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for good reason.
I sometimes wonder if we identified a way to eliminate poverty but it would require the further accentuation of economic inequality would Americans go for it. Sadly, I suspect not.
Am I the only one who finds Powers’ “I just cannot abide all this American income inequality so I’m going to buy ten acres in Italy” hilarious?
-- David, your adept exploration of crucial facts with clarity is commendable. Balancing conflicting truths is a universal challenge. I often contemplate whether the roots of this global reality are embedded in the ideas implanted in our minds daily. Is there truly a way out? xo.
You've inspired me to watch "Babette's Feast" again.
Isn’t it likely that Kirsten Powers is embellishing her quality of life on social media (Substack)? I think we misunderstand the wealth gap. I don’t hear about people begrudging Jeff Bezos his wealth. Post-WW2 American dominance and globalization made it possible for corporations to achieve gigantic scale and still be led by one person. What is the historic equivalent of a Ken Langone or Larry Fink? It’s possible that the wealth gap that really matters is the one between gradations of middle class. People who are visible to us, even across the street, are more likely to stir envy. That’s why I don’t believe a more progressive tax code is the answer. For example, our obsession with expensive and valueless credentials (i.e. college), only stigmatizes people who are less fortunate, or too shrewd to take on debt that can’t be repaid. I bet that is more harmful than the missed opportunity to increase taxes and spend the money subsidizing Tesla.
There are studies to show that happiness correlates with perceived rank rather than wealth. (See eg Boyce et al , Money and Happiness: Rank of Income, Not Income, Affects Life Satisfaction (2010)). In other words, most people would be happier with less absolute $$ yet be wealthier than their neighbors, than have more absolute $$ yet be worse off compared to neighbors. (Another, maybe only slightly related yet also interesting study posits that the ideal income for "life satsifaction", which is the social science term for happiness I suppose, falls between $75,000 and $105,000 per year.) I imagine that there are NO studies showing that when a certain (very high) level of wealth is attained, the envy factor dissipates.
Got a couple of observations here. First, Wolfe was totally dishonest in the book. Sherman McCoy was originally going to be writer...an Elaine's denizen, someone I knew...but he discovered that no one cared what happened to a writer, so he changed it and made McCoy the most ridiculous caricature of a Wall Street schmuck that he could. I was working on the Street when it came out and everyone I knew just roared at how idiotic the portrait was. When, for example, the detectives come to McCoy's apartment and he gets flustered and gives himself away... Pul-eeze! Anyone in that position would have had his high priced lawyer on the phone in a heartbeat and from there, the whole story collapses.
This isn't trivial for two reasons. Wolfe intended to provoke a perverse sort of envy, aware that people have ALWAYS envied wealth. During the Gilded Age, JP Morgan essentially bailed out the United States government by himself. But the Gilded Age also coincided with the anarchist movement...which was spurred by income inequality...and the seeds of what would become the Russian Revolution. Income inequality was also the spur to the French Revolution, which was begun not by the poor but by those who were actually not that bad off.
So you're actually discussing a phenomenon that is likely as old as is the human species. Where things get dangerous...as they are becoming in the United States...is when income inequality becomes so acute and so public that those on the lower end, although they may be getting by okay, become so angry that they want to tear the system down. The super rich can prevent that by being a bit more subtle in their conspicuous consumption, but they never are.
Another fine piece btw. Starting to really look forward to waking up on Saturday AM and seeing the little substack chevron on my phone announcing a new DR posting!
Wow. You covered a lot of ground. Forgive me if I’m long.
Your inherent discomfort with BS – it’s one of the things that makes your essays so darn good.
The wealth gap - while of great importance and in constant need of attention, is not as stark as it’s often portrayed because the value of government support programs that provide income, housing, food, healthcare, cell phones/service, service, etc. are often not included in the measure.
Kristen Power’s essay - I found much to disagree with. It seems to be more of a comparison of city life vs. small town/rural life than one of American life vs. Italian life. The Hallmark channel is loaded with movies about people with high flying but soul crushing jobs that find love and happiness in a small town with good people. She also seems to have a very impressionistic view of life in Italy. Most Italians I know (Rome/Florence) have as many or more deep concerns about life in Italy as Kirsten has about life in America. Most importantly, I think that there is a certain lack of self awareness and humility in complaining about capitalism in America while buying ten acres outside of Venice, having dinner with friends who live half the year in Italy and half the year in the states, complaining about taxes, referencing your therapist, and suggesting that the produce in Italy is so superior to anything that can found in the entire United Sates.
The loud ring of truth – “But until then, one simple, obvious, and decent step is for the wealthy (or faux wealthy) to stop using social media to display lifestyles unavailable to most Americans. And instead for the wealthy to understand that they have an outsized influence and thus an outsized responsibility to behave with decency.”
So much of what ails us could be cured with a liberal dose of humility.
On today's assignment, "Have you now or in the past been negatively affected by invidious comparisons of wealth?" I have a couple of quick responses. My answer is no, I don't think so. First, I was never motivated by money. The downside to that, is that while I was able to pay my way as I needed to, I never made a lot of money, despite probably having the necessary potential. Well, downside? By some measures, I suppose so. But I'm happy with my life and there were other mistakes I made that were far more important than money. Second, I just never saw celebrities as special. They benefited from our economic system but that did not make them special. This may trace back to my father being a rabbi and me being aware that clergy were not necessarily special people. I saw my rabbi naked. I heard my rabbi belch. I heard him laugh. He was as human as we all are, and I knew that all the clergy were human. They all put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. Today's celebrities are the same. Those who are parents are no better, or worse, parents than the rest of us due to their circumstance. Their wealth does not guarantee happiness, nor does it make happiness unattainable. Stuff. They can afford more stuff. So? Will one of their kids donate a kidney if they need one? That is a question of love, not money. So, what they have does not matter to me.
Now, do we need changes to our system? Of course. Unfortunately, the disproportionate concentration of wealth also creates a disproportionate concentration of power, reducing the democratic forces that are foundational to our society.
(I've been repeatedly distracted while writing this so I hope it is cogent, but if not, well some days are like this.)
David--once again, thank you for making these abstract and consequential issues so personal and specific. We spent most of our 30s on the UES with 2 kids in private school and even though we should've felt prosperous, we always felt like the poorest folks in the room. (Though I've since learned we were not alone in that misbelief.) As you illustrate, the most insidious thing about that system is the shame that lives in private darkness--"we are not doing as well as ..." It keeps us chronically unsatisfied and perpetually dogged by a sense of less-than. The irony is, if we were all a bit more open, we'd see we're doing great, actually--and there are a variety of measures to consider, well beyond the dollar signs. Which is why your work is of such value.
The other point I want to consider is, at what point does the private competition that drives this machine become maladaptive? Certainly we feel it collectively--the gutting of the American middle-class; the spoiling of the planet in our thirst for more STUFF. But also for the individual: I've come to believe that when we motivate ourselves through the internalized rat-race, the ceiling of what we can achieve is much lower than it would be if we were motivated by richer, intrinsic desires. I think about this a lot now that I have kids. How do I motivate them to work and care? Compassion, empathy, satisfaction in their own competence as a driver of confidence are front and center for me and my husband. Whether this translates to a Classic 7 will (I hope) be beyond the point.
So maybe, to circle back on the theme you and I discussed a couple of essays ago, our boys will evolve beyond my husband and me in their social/ emotional development so they see that those status symbols don't mean so much, anyway.