Why do we tolerate mega-wealth?
This is a Facebook Note written by a friend of mine, Frank Dana, that was so good I thought folks here might enjoy reading it.
By Frank R. Dana
(I wrote this about a year ago, initially as a comment on someone else's post, then as a status update of my own. In honor of the information I posted today, based on an Oxfam report, that EIGHTY-FIVE people control the same amount of wealth as the lower half of the *world* population, I'm reiterating...)
...Why do we tolerate mega-wealth? — Not mere millionaires, but really obscene, couldn't-possibly-use-it-all accumulations of untold multiple billions of dollars? Your Bill Gateses your Saudi sheiks, your Apple Computers. (And this isn't about Apple's corporate value, but its wealth — some say they could be sitting on as much as $100 billion.) Societally, I mean, why do we accept, admire, even praise the "achievement" of consolidating so much wealth into the control of one entity?
If your small fishing village was experiencing a famine, or if your country had instituted wartime rationing of food, it wouldn't be considered "okay" for some morbidly obese glutton to be stuffing himself to death with food while everyone around him fought not to starve. Even if he obtained the food fairly, heck even if he produced every bite of it himself, it would still be viewed as shameful to be wallowing in such excesses of consumption. It wouldn't have to be illegal, or even "wrong", to be viewed as morally lacking, and most people would take a dim view of someone with such a gluttonous appetite, and so little self-awareness or empathy for the other members of the community. Fatso would get the stink-eye, for sure.
Yet, when someone scrapes together a pile of gold big enough to choke the Nile and shoves it in their basement, we marvel at their achievement and praise their "success", as if what they've accumulated are merely points on a scoreboard, and not actual, fungible resources. (Money, dammit, IS a commodity, if perhaps a uniquely volatile one.) Why do we drool over Apple's $100 billion corporate bank account, and devour breathlessly-written pieces on what a "problem" they have trying to figure out how to spend all that cash, without even raising the question of whether their massive wealth is a good thing? How could it not be, right?
Wouldn't it be appropriate (perhaps even more appropriate) to instead react with something like, "Holy shit, Apple so overprices their products, and/or underpays their employees or suppliers, that they're sitting on $100 billion in CASH from being the peddlers of wildly unnecessary digital toys."? Why would it be wrong to consider their massive wealth and the process by which they achieved it just as gluttonous, shameful, and reprehensible as our theoretical food-hoarder?
Or, take Bill Gates. Now, he's done a lot of really amazing things with his wealth, things which are undeniably praiseworthy. I have absolutely no desire to diminish the incredibly generosity he's demonstrated, with his incredibly vast personal fortune. But, thing is, he didn't HAVE to do that. (Which makes it all the more laudable, of course.) He could just as easily have sat on the entire $70+ billion or whatever it was, or swam around in it like Scrooge McDuck. So, why would we (again, societally) favor people having that option? Why was it even "okay" that he became worth so much to begin with, regardless of what he did or didn't ultimately choose to do with the money? Why are we so unquestioningly worshipful of financial gluttony?
= new reply since forum marked as read
but you beat me to it. 
I am a strong individualist; probably that American upbringing and conditioning so deeply embedded in my psyche.
I'm also, though, a collectivist.
Can I be both? Is that schizophrenic, or just more complex than the polarized, black/white, either/or conditioning that humans, Americans in particular, seem to think in?
I'm for the collective good, and for working together to provide it.
I'm also for individual rights, and I want to be able to draw a line in the sand that cannot be crossed. In reality, of course, that line has to shift and move with the sand, so that my individual rights don't impede anyone else's, and don't harm the collective good. Still...
. . . I have a feeling he won't mind. 
I bet I'm not the only one who would like to share the article. I don't do any real "facebooking," or I'd ask him, myself.
Don't you understand? We're all completely free to become that wealthy.
I wonder why that is
... and we've been the amazed dupes. Game's up, and we're pissed. 
Oh yeah, good article.
Last edited Tue Mar 25, 2014, 03:24 PM - Edit history (1)
I think there used to be some social stigma that may have had an effect in limiting gluttony, possibly related to it being one of the seven deadly sins of Christianity. Then Reagan and the financialization of the 80s turned that upside down and greed became good, etc.
Now with so many billionaires creating "success inflation," there are probably some psychopaths on Wall Street dreaming of becoming the first trillionaire. It's absurd and destructive.
He's just another Carnegie and Rockefeller. No one gets that disgustingly rich without fucking people over both on their way and to remain on top (it's a contest). Each turned philanthropic. Douchebags often turn philanthropic. Why you show so much reverence for Bill Gates should be the title of your next thread: "Why do we glorify douchebags once they turn philanthropic?"
Philanthropists love to stick their name on everything.
Here's The Gates Center at, fittingly, Carnegie-Mellon University.
"Waiting for Superman" was his charter school propaganda campaign. The entire movie was about Americans not being competitive with the ROW. If you read between the lines: Gates is rationalizing why he won't pay top dollar to American IT workers and engineers. By convincing America that we our education is wonting, he gets cheap labor from overseas. Take it a bit further, he and Apple are in a race to get their products into to schools. Tons of money to be made. Philanthropy, turned propaganda, turned profit motive. I wonder how many Bill Gates Centers there will be???? That Bill Gates, he's a swell guy.
