December 25, 2005
-
There is a joke told in Russia about a farmer who, while plowing his field, discovers a magic lamp buried in the soil. He rubs it and a genie appears. The genie offers him one wish, anything he wants, but there is a catch: whatever wealth, riches, or good fortune this man receives, his neighbor will receive twice as much. After some thought, the farmer straightens up with a smile and says, "Make me blind in one eye."
The Week had a blurb a while back* about "the rich keep getting richer": that's not a problem unless the rich are evil. Nina Munk complains "The same people appear year after year after year [on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest US citizens]: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Paul Allen... Members of the Forbes 400... are richer than Croesus, and every hour they are getting richer."
This sort of diatribe frustrates me, because it presumes that envy is a legitimate ground for moral reasoning. The actual moral question in view here is not "are the rich getting richer" (and by implication, you and I are not: press ENVY button here), but "are the rich using their wealth to care for the poor?"
I wonder if anyone has researched the Forbes 400, particularly the "persistently rich" perennial names on that list, to find an answer to that question. To take the very first person Munk mentions, I must say that the way Bill Gates has chosen to wield his wealth has completely changed my personal opinion of him (as a Mac addict myself, it wasn't good). I may not agree with all the things his foundation decides to fund, but he's certainly no Scrooge. In his response to TIME Magazine naming him (and Bono) as "2005 Persons of the Year", Bill says "We realize that we've been extremely fortunate in business, and we want to give back in ways that can do the most good for the most people." He's no poet, but he isn't lying either. He has given away hundreds of millions of dollars, and tried to do it in the wisest way he knows how, not merely as a tax shelter. In fact, he and his wife Melinda aim to give away most of their fortune during their lifetimes (sorry I can't find the source for that, to quote it).
A great many other rich people feel the same as Bill: they recognize that they have been blessed beyond what they have a right to expect from life (whether by God or "fortune" or whatever), and they want to "give back" to help those who are hurting or struggling.
Naturally, a great many rich people like to think they feel the same as Bill but are in fact guilty of neglecting the poor and even actively oppressing them. Some rich people do not even pretend to share Bill's sentiments. That is moral failure worth calling attention to: not accumulation of wealth but evil use of it, in omission or comission. But as we do so, let's not fall into envy's trap and wish poverty on the rich. Let's wish prosperity for the poor.
Another reason diatribes like Munk's frustrate me is the way they tend to muddy this other legitimate issue, which is not a moral problem but a macroeconomic problem: the stalling of upward financial mobility. The not-yet-rich are not joining the ranks of the rich as frequently as they once did, in America. The poor are not rising so often to the middle class. The indigent homeless are not rising so often to the ranks of the working poor. Or are they? What's stopping them? Why? I don't know.** Too much ink is spilled about the straw man of class envy, so articles rarely get around to the real problems underneath the hot-button topics.
It tempts me to research it myself and write my own articles about it.
*21 October 2005, condensed from Nina Munk's article in the New York Times.
**Although I have some ideas, as do you. What's your opinion?
