On Standards for Wealth: Carlos Lehder is worth a reported $2.7 Billion. But you won’t find the Columbian drug lord on the Forbes 400 richest list. Nor have any number of extremely wealthy criminals appear on the list that we google and ogle. There is an entire alternate economy in the world that isn’t discussed in polite company. It’s kind of a Harry Potter style “sorting hat”, where there is a secret standard set for wealth we drool over. Looking at where that “acceptable” and “not-on-the-A-list” line is drawn says a lot about the way we view wealth. That’s important in a lot of ways.
To fully understand why the line on “acceptable” wealth is important requires an understanding of what currently drives our nation. The author John Steinbeck once observed that our poor see themselves as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”. Another way to say it is that Americans are obsessed with the rich. We’re fascinated with how the rich live, what they drive, what entertains them, who they invite to parties, what they wear, where they vacation, the ins and outs of their relationships and what made them rich. It’s the biggest vicarious hobby in our nation. So many want to be “just like them”. Tally up all the money we spend on Lottery tickets, dreaming of a shortcut to super-richness. To make this envy palatable, we have to ignore the negatives of wealth as much as we can. Otherwise our dreams would be clouded and untidy.
Our view of acceptable wealth is hypocritical. While Mr Lehder will never make the Forbes list, the Sackler family, of Purdue Pharma, were among our most respected. That was until we were forced to accept that their wealth was based on fueling the opioid crisis. For a long time, we found a way to make their drug-dealing acceptable. Alan H. Shaw is worth $11.6 million, the kind of successful business type we look up too. He’s the CEO of Norfolk-Southern Railroad. The RR that was enriching itself by poorly maintaining its equipment and whose train wreck poisoned the town of East Palestine, OH. General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch was one of the most heralded business execs in the nation and worth $720 million. In her book, “Retirement Heist”, author Ellen Schultz details how a succession of GE CEO’s failed to fund the company’s retirement obligations to its employees. This ended up being one of the worst retiree rip-offs in history. Welch wrote a best-selling book called “Winning”! You don’t hear the name Edir Macedo much in our nation, but he’s the worlds richest preacher, worth over a billion dollars. Joel Osten, the man of God who refused to let flood victims into his church for fear they would ruin the carpet, is worth $40 million. We worship their financial success, but what would Jesus say? We love those pictures of the playgrounds the middle-east rulers are building in Dubai and Doha. Not much is said about the basis for those extravagances. That the oil cartel is essentially a global blackmailing operation that keeps much of its population in poverty. One more. Howard Schultz of Starbucks, a big contributor to liberal causes is worth $3.2 billion. We still buy his overpriced coffee by the gallons as he violates his employees’ rights to form a union and get a fair piece of the wealth they are creating.
The point of these few examples, of many, is that our starry-eyed view of wealth needs an attitude adjustment. If we set a higher standard on what wealth should be admired, how many of our rich and famous would meet it? What might that higher standard look like? How about admiring companies and their executives who add to the nation’s capacity, improve the human condition and share fairly with those who created their success? Demand that our moral and ethical leaders live up to the teachings they espouse for the rest of us. Remove private money from politics and then honor those who enter public service to represent us, not enrich themselves. In the bigger picture, look down on those who use their wealth and power in the service of greed and the degradation of economic and social equity. How about judging people who inherit great wealth by what they do with their money, instead of elevating them because of the luck of birth? Let’s take the “wow” out of those who’s wealth does not serve the common good.
If we were to redraw the “wealth admiration” line in this way, think of how it would change our lives and our nation. Money would become a vehicle for global progress, instead of a corrosive barrier to solving our problems. How would we view criminality? Would we be defunding the IRS to protect wealthy tax cheats? Would we be weakening worker’s rights to challenge hugely profitable companies? Would we be listening to preachers who want us to do as they say, not as they do? Would we get better political candidate choices as our system rewards representation over accumulation? Would the people’s voice be heard over the clinking of coins? Is it possible that our unrestricted worship of wealth is at the root of why we can’t feel good about where our nation is headed? More importantly, if we raise the standard on the money people, will things change for the better?
The challenge is to redefine the American Dream. Our goal still should be that all of us should have the opportunity to succeed. What needs to be untwisted is a caveat that success can’t come by trampling on others or wasting the positive potential of money. If our economy and society continues to signal that anything goes, in the climb up the ladder, real opportunity is an illusion. It comes down to the health of our society. How do we tell a poor kid in the hood to take that low-paying fast-food job, when they see the scofflaws and sharpies enjoying opulence and success? It’s time to call out all the American hustlers.
ihg 2-16-2024 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at: https://ikegittlen.substack.com/ and share. Let’s see what we can build together.
I don't know how you managed it, but you put your finger on the main cause of why the US is messed up.
Thank you!