The Rich, They're Not Like You and I...

[Harvey]

When we are shifted ever more toward valuing abstract symbols instead of the things those symbols actually represent it becomes difficult to retain any authentic sense of value at all.

For instance:

I am justified in using an arsenal of expensively researched manipulation strategies to make Joe buy stupid throw away (throw? and where is 'away'?) consumer rubbish he didn't want or need in the first place.

I have bread but I don't have enough bread, so I am justified sneaking into Joes house and stealing a freshly baked loaf off his dining table while his family are washing up before their meal.

Why is one of those morally defensible in todays world and the other not?

Why, because in one scenario Joe had 'freedom of choice' and in the other he did not. One is theft, the other is capitalism.

Abstract theft is not theft at all. So while Big Brother is watching you, make sure you're watching him because his hand is in your wallet.

[Simulist]

^ Great analysis. And so true.

[undead]

[Nordic]

Even the occasional twinges of empathy felt by a rich person are almost always accompanied by other twinges, of hostility, as in, "Thank God I'm not you!" It might not be expressed, or even consciously thought, but it's there.

I often see people on the street who inspire me to think "man, I'm glad I'm not THAT guy". Usually some beat-up looking homeless guy lurching across the street in traffic. Looking like he's had a really bad life.

But I don't feel hostility, quite the opposite. It puts things in perspective for me.

Who was that CEO who recently got caught beating up a homeless guy?

[Nordic]

And oh yeah -- saw this in a bookstore the other day:

[NeonLX]

Never heard of Tucker Max before this thread. After doing a quick internet search, my first thought was, "Hmmm... Tucker rhymes with...". But then I thought, "Hmmm...maybe that's the idea". My third thought was to give up thinking because I ain't very good at it (in spite of decades trying to be).

[beeline]

There are people so poor that the only thing they have is money.

Whoa. Yes. That's one for the quotes thread. Puts into words exactly what I've felt about this subject.

A lot of that around here. But not to generalize, I have, in the past 12 years or so, met a lot of nice people with loads of money. They just tend to be the exception rather than the rule. And often, ironically, often they have inherited it.

Yeah, that has been my experience. I've worked for a few very rich people, and, in general, they're pretty much ignorant assholes. But there are a few that weren't. Most of these were of the self-made variety--if they started out poor or middle class, they didn't forget what it was to be that. But if they're born into it--look out. They just have no idea.

One of my favorite quotes was from a twentysomething girl that went to India to seek enlightenment from her guru. She was going on and on about how wonderful it was, how spiritually fulfilling it was, but, on the flight back "there were chickens and sheep and the stink was unimaginable! I had to take a Valium!"

[The Consul]

If only money were the only thing. If only love or bitterness. All of it chews and all of it tears at that time your brother fell down the stairs and all you could do was laugh. You carry an edge because you couldn’t save your sister from the world, astounded that your mother was not a virgin and you are not the only son of man. So Ride the donkey, bang the bong, blame your pain on whatever comes along. The rich man parked his Lamborghini on my balls, he smashed his whiskey up and down my halls. The poor man fell asleep on the dime I lost, I can’t remember who actually nailed me to this cross. Every breath goes in like the next great gasp, tripping mad down puppy love lane, with dreams of remaining somehow sane. Reach out for the money, reach out for the gun. Let the light out of your eyes, it’s no sin to have a little fun. Inside us all the cancer grows, dancing to the music of 1,000 Jim Crows. A little plant struggles inside your window, it doesn’t need to know what anything is. Dirty Harry was a flower child. If only money were the only thing. If only bitterness. Take me home and bury me in your bed and forget everything we said. We must be leaving, leaving soon, we must escape from all these rooms. The apostles laughed at The Rich Young Man when he ran in madness away. Jesus wrote something in the sand. The only word he ever wrote. We must be leaving soon, we must escape all these rooms.

[Perelandra]

Thank you, Consul, for a fave Lemmy and your moving prose.

We must escape from all these rooms, but it's rooms all the way down/up.

[Nordic]

I know a wealthy mom who doesn't even have a job, inherited all her money, but she insists on hiring a full time "personal assistant" to help her with her oh-so-stressful life. Got her a car and everything.

[JackRiddler]

I know a wealthy mom who doesn't even have a job, inherited all her money, but she insists on hiring a full time "personal assistant" to help her with her oh-so-stressful life. Got her a car and everything.

Well, you might think of it as a spiritual corruption, but this isn't unethical behavior. Of all the things one could do with the money, hiring someone to be your pretend-friend and helper through the day (and who probably prefers the job to most alternatives) is not bad, neutral at worst. Depending of course on the pay and benefits.

[Nordic]

Well I didn't mean it was evil or anything just ... silly. What would this woman do with real stress in her life? Her daughter, who is a friend of my stepdaughter, finds it all very embarrassing. (Then again what teenage girl isn't embarrassed by her parents?)

[The Consul]

I had a friend who was basically paid 1200 a week to hang out with the wife of a certain television star. After a while she couldn't take it any more. Some of it is benign. People who are born with money, the ones I have known, usually have a complex about it. Either they are almost insufferably insensitive to those beneath them or they flirt with the gutter to prove their humanity. Conscience always makes demands unless you are a despot. I have no doubt that many people who are wealthy have a different base set of ethics. Something has to account for their privaledge other than the fortune grandpa made; something has to make them deserving, something has to make them better. When those arguments fall apart it's time to do a few lines. And if you come out of that it's just the game of getting more, having more. Sadly, many rich look down on everyone else as peons who they believe should consider themselves lucky to have the rich to lord over them. But really, it is the relationship between the 1st world and the 3rd, the northern world and the southern. For some of them they have to look down on the rest as just grist for th mills. And since the rules don't usually apply as much to them as the un-rich, it is not only possible but acceptable behavior. The political masterstroke of the rich the last 30 years is to get ignorant people to turn against their own interests by demonizing other sectors of the peasant class. Unions, teachers, environmentalist, undocumented workers and the subtle oh so subtle fear of the vanishing white majority.The greatest invention of the rich is the illusion that they are not a privaledged class but a goal post of the american dream. The demise of the socialist left has created a situation where the wealth of the country rises unabated to the corporatist class like so much methane escaping from the sea floor.

A nation in servitude to shareholder value is doomed to come apart at the seams. The enlightened rich will not save us any more than the demonic rich. Capitalism is a disease. As a species we have yet to come up with any successful treatment. The rich, for the most part, in one way or form or another, feed off of this disease. All of us do here in this country to an extent because footprint wise all of us are rich compared to those who have to spend 3-4 hours per day simply carrying enough pottable water to survive, which is in all reality a far more honest pursuit than any in which most of us are engaged. Carry the water, as the song goes...is there anyway to do it that isn't for the rich?

[The Consul]

deleted duplicate post....not lightnin enough...

[Nordic]

Beautifully put, as usual, Consul.

What I find interesting, and where I find a certain degree of solace when I feel my own culture is branding me a "loser" is how wealthy I must seem to a great many inhabitants of the planet earth.

Is it really all relative? Is my having clean running (and hot! if I want it) water, a fridge, and electricity 24 hrs a day really analogous to a CEO's mega-yacht with its helipad and private chef?
How much does relativity play in this? Are there absolutes? When does one become, by definition "materially wealthy"? Is the difference in the perception of this based on culture affect the reality of it?

I own 2 cars for instance. They're both over 20 years old and their collective mileage is over 400,000 miles. Yet they both run. To many people of the world this is great wealth. Do they look at me the same way I look at, say, Bill Gates? If they don't why don't they? Should they? I am at least aware, but does being aware make it okay?