I'm going to reply by copying my reply to Amanda's comment about the Inner Life vs. the Outer Life. And add that you also define that distinction very aptly. I'm finding it a useful way to consider many things.
Amanda,
Thanks for your comment. My eyes lit up when you wrote "inner" as I'm doing a post for the Substack "Inner Life" and I'm basing it on Howards End, which has at its heart a battle between the Inner and Outer Life as Forster has his main character define it. And you and your friend have a definition that is very much consistent with that theme of the novel. I'm coming to believer that Substack can nourish our Inner Life, albeit mostly via posts and comments. But I think the analogue with 1910 London may be telegrams symbolizing the Outer Life of logistics and letters written at more leisure and certainly greater length.
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.
Thanks for your comment. My eyes lit up when you wrote "inner" as I'm doing a post for the Substack "Inner Life" and I'm basing it on Howards End, which has at its heart a battle between the Inner and Outer Life as Forster has his main character define it. And you and your friend have a definition that is very much consistent with that theme of the novel. I'm coming to believer that Substack can nourish our Inner Life, albeit mostly via posts and comments. But I think their analogue with 191o London may be telegrams symbolizing the Outer Life of logistics and letters written at more leisure and certainly greater length.
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.
I think it was the world I grew up in and the expectation that I would go into finance and investments. To continue the family predilection for being financially successful. Once there, I fell prey to the invidious comparisons I describe. But when I look back at how I digested Bonfire, it seems ludicrous to me.
But I always felt a pull between the life of commerce and the life of the mind.
I can understand that and don't berate you for it. I was always heading for the life of the mind (although my parents were big on the idea of worldly success - and when we moved to NYC when I was 9, my dad took me down to Times Square with the camel cigarettes ad and said "One day your name will be up in lights here". I think I had the good sense not to believe him!).
I can’t remember whether you subscribe to my newsletter (which has similar aims to your own, namely to use events in my life as a jumping off point to ruminate on something larger) but I wrote a sister post to your own here https://arichardson.substack.com/p/the-search-for-intimacy.
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.
There is a critical choice available to us. I choose not to pay much attention to daily news because I don't think it benefits me. In fact, following the absurd news of the day takes something from me. (Note: I'm certain the peace breaks out and/or famine is eliminated, I'll get word.) Paying any attention to the rich and famous is a similar choice and I figure I'll give them the same attention they give me, so they don't bother me.
I deeply appreciate your transparency and your sharing how you feel. It is in most of our natures to compare ourselves with people who have more.
That said, I just want to tell you that when I hear of a married couple who are both teachers the respect and gratitude I have for you and your spouse is enormous. Many of us have to work hard to find ways to be helpful to society; you both are constantly engaged doing just that.
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.
I was struck by the Kirsten Power's aspiration to move to Italy. It didn't chime with the anecdotes of a number of friends and acquaintances who've left Italy and joined an expat community in NYC. Her hope to relocate to Italy may indeed make sense for her, yet there seems to be a huge migration of youth out of Italy. (https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/02/18/807025154/ciao-italia-why-italys-youth-are-leaving-in-droves)
They're not. They like Powers have the wherewithal to make the move. I'm of the sort that is connected psychologically to the land of my youth so the whole idea of moving somewhere else gives me hives!
What struck me was do they have no family with whom to share life? I could lower my cost of living and enjoy warmer winters if I relocated, but I'd be moving away from my children and grandchildren and why would I do that?
-- 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.
What these studies reveal is simply that envy is alive and well. If someone offered to increase my standard of living by 10% and in exchange my neighbors’ standard of living would increase by 100%, I’d take that in a New York minute, but these studies suggest I’m an outlier. Sad, really.
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.
Yes envy, like all sin, is part of the human condition, though it is foolish to reward it by punishing the successful. And I agree that conspicuous consumption is pernicious. The super-rich would do well to regard Warren Buffett as their aspirational behavioral model.
Haha. Don't feel bad. Wolfe was a talented writer and, hey, manipulating the reader is what we do, isn't it? We use wit, irony, misdirection, even punctuation, to try to get the reader to see things a certain way. That's what the craft is. The trick is to manipulate the reader with a fundamental honesty that doesn't leave a bad taste or a sense of being betrayed when the reader is done. John Le Carre, in his Smiley books, was brilliant at it. In Bonfires, Wolfe was not honest but he used easy targets to hide the flaws.
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.
Thanks Sam for all your thoughts. The French Revolution was incited not by the poor but by the middle class who resented the lock on wealth and power of the nobility.
I think it is the 75th percentile to the 90% (or higher) who are most plagued by wealth envy. Many of them are professionals, but professionals in industries, like journalism or academia, that on a relative basis don't pay nearly on par with many other professions. And I "get" that envy in that writers and professors tend to have greater intellectual chops than many businessmen.
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.)
Yes. While we all have different utility curves for money, I’m fairly convinced that it pretty much always flattens considerably after basic necessities are secure, at least if utility is measured chiefly by happiness.
I'm going to reply by copying my reply to Amanda's comment about the Inner Life vs. the Outer Life. And add that you also define that distinction very aptly. I'm finding it a useful way to consider many things.
Amanda,
Thanks for your comment. My eyes lit up when you wrote "inner" as I'm doing a post for the Substack "Inner Life" and I'm basing it on Howards End, which has at its heart a battle between the Inner and Outer Life as Forster has his main character define it. And you and your friend have a definition that is very much consistent with that theme of the novel. I'm coming to believer that Substack can nourish our Inner Life, albeit mostly via posts and comments. But I think the analogue with 1910 London may be telegrams symbolizing the Outer Life of logistics and letters written at more leisure and certainly greater length.
Best,
David
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.
Amanda,
Thanks for your comment. My eyes lit up when you wrote "inner" as I'm doing a post for the Substack "Inner Life" and I'm basing it on Howards End, which has at its heart a battle between the Inner and Outer Life as Forster has his main character define it. And you and your friend have a definition that is very much consistent with that theme of the novel. I'm coming to believer that Substack can nourish our Inner Life, albeit mostly via posts and comments. But I think their analogue with 191o London may be telegrams symbolizing the Outer Life of logistics and letters written at more leisure and certainly greater length.
Best,
David
Ahhh fantastic! Can’t wait!
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.
I will say that the worst real estate transactions I ever made professionally were so cheap we couldn't believe it.But there was always a good reason!
As to knowing people who are suffering, I think the power of that knowledge and the specifics of their circumstances can overpower any statistic.
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.
Ann,
I think it was the world I grew up in and the expectation that I would go into finance and investments. To continue the family predilection for being financially successful. Once there, I fell prey to the invidious comparisons I describe. But when I look back at how I digested Bonfire, it seems ludicrous to me.
But I always felt a pull between the life of commerce and the life of the mind.
I can understand that and don't berate you for it. I was always heading for the life of the mind (although my parents were big on the idea of worldly success - and when we moved to NYC when I was 9, my dad took me down to Times Square with the camel cigarettes ad and said "One day your name will be up in lights here". I think I had the good sense not to believe him!).
I can’t remember whether you subscribe to my newsletter (which has similar aims to your own, namely to use events in my life as a jumping off point to ruminate on something larger) but I wrote a sister post to your own here https://arichardson.substack.com/p/the-search-for-intimacy.
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
Thanks John. I have similar regrets about wasted thoughts. But sometimes we have to wait for wisdom to come to us!
Only sometimes?
True!
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.
There is a critical choice available to us. I choose not to pay much attention to daily news because I don't think it benefits me. In fact, following the absurd news of the day takes something from me. (Note: I'm certain the peace breaks out and/or famine is eliminated, I'll get word.) Paying any attention to the rich and famous is a similar choice and I figure I'll give them the same attention they give me, so they don't bother me.
Jesse,
I deeply appreciate your transparency and your sharing how you feel. It is in most of our natures to compare ourselves with people who have more.
That said, I just want to tell you that when I hear of a married couple who are both teachers the respect and gratitude I have for you and your spouse is enormous. Many of us have to work hard to find ways to be helpful to society; you both are constantly engaged doing just that.
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?
I was struck by the Kirsten Power's aspiration to move to Italy. It didn't chime with the anecdotes of a number of friends and acquaintances who've left Italy and joined an expat community in NYC. Her hope to relocate to Italy may indeed make sense for her, yet there seems to be a huge migration of youth out of Italy. (https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/02/18/807025154/ciao-italia-why-italys-youth-are-leaving-in-droves)
Yes, and neither they nor KP doesn’t strike me as members of the salt of the earth paycheck to paycheck cohort.
They're not. They like Powers have the wherewithal to make the move. I'm of the sort that is connected psychologically to the land of my youth so the whole idea of moving somewhere else gives me hives!
What struck me was do they have no family with whom to share life? I could lower my cost of living and enjoy warmer winters if I relocated, but I'd be moving away from my children and grandchildren and why would I do that?
I'm magnetically attached to NYC for the same reason Josh.
I'm not surprised and I'm guessing this speaks to your more important values, the really important ones.
She has an extreme case of Pretentious Fake Outrage Virtue Signaling ("Look at Me!")
-- 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.
Thanks Thaissa. Well, "a way out" is a quixotic quest I've set for myself. Lance in hand, I charge at the windmills!
You've inspired me to watch "Babette's Feast" again.
Embarrassed to say I've never seen it.
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.
Jeff Bezos is pretty unpopular in the Substack world I "travel" in. But I add to his coffers just as much as anyone!
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.
What these studies reveal is simply that envy is alive and well. If someone offered to increase my standard of living by 10% and in exchange my neighbors’ standard of living would increase by 100%, I’d take that in a New York minute, but these studies suggest I’m an outlier. Sad, really.
Ah, the New York minute! The shortest known measurement of time.
Great Eagles song as well.
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.
Yes envy, like all sin, is part of the human condition, though it is foolish to reward it by punishing the successful. And I agree that conspicuous consumption is pernicious. The super-rich would do well to regard Warren Buffett as their aspirational behavioral model.
Well, Wolfe snookered me bad! A reflection of my youth and insecurity.
I would not be surprised if during the next 8-12 years we have a significant reaction against the system.
Haha. Don't feel bad. Wolfe was a talented writer and, hey, manipulating the reader is what we do, isn't it? We use wit, irony, misdirection, even punctuation, to try to get the reader to see things a certain way. That's what the craft is. The trick is to manipulate the reader with a fundamental honesty that doesn't leave a bad taste or a sense of being betrayed when the reader is done. John Le Carre, in his Smiley books, was brilliant at it. In Bonfires, Wolfe was not honest but he used easy targets to hide the flaws.
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.
Thanks Sam for all your thoughts. The French Revolution was incited not by the poor but by the middle class who resented the lock on wealth and power of the nobility.
I think it is the 75th percentile to the 90% (or higher) who are most plagued by wealth envy. Many of them are professionals, but professionals in industries, like journalism or academia, that on a relative basis don't pay nearly on par with many other professions. And I "get" that envy in that writers and professors tend to have greater intellectual chops than many businessmen.
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.)
Yes. While we all have different utility curves for money, I’m fairly convinced that it pretty much always flattens considerably after basic necessities are secure, at least if utility is measured chiefly by happiness.
Perfectly cogent Josh!