Classical Values :: Guilty opiate of the rich asses

August 24, 2007

Guilty opiate of the rich asses

Clayton Cramer (not a Communist, nor even a socialist) makes what I'm pretty sure is a sarcastic suggestion that the government confiscate all wealth exceeding one million dollars:

I've long been of the opinion that most of this countercultural stuff that San Francisco is awash in would evaporate overnight if the government confiscated all wealth exceeding one million dollars. It would also starve the Democratic Party of resources.

Certainly, such confiscation would put an end to what Michael Barone called the "trustfunder left," but it begs the question of why these wealthy people are on the left. I have long believed it is because they feel guilty about having money they did not earn, and that this irrational guilt makes them want to atone. Accordingly, they fall for the line that the government should confiscate wealth from the most productive members of society, and give it to "the poor" (which means the government bureaucracy).

I think a better solution would be to search out, attack, and destroy the guilt that the wealth creates. There is no logic at all to this guilt, and I've yet to see any rational explanation of why money is evil. I've posed this question before:

...many of the trustfunders feel guilty because they do not have to work, and this guilt (whether deserved or not) is steered for a variety of reasons towards leftist political causes. Their enemies become the rest of the people who do work -- and the more successful they are, the more they're hated (the latter in turn often oblige by hating those who don't have to work). Their friends become all others who don't work. This can include other trustfunders, welfare recipients, penniless bohemians, or homeless outcasts psychologically unsuited for work.

What surprises me is how seldom people stop to think. Is money evil? Is wealth bad? Why is the presence of gainful employment necessarily more virtuous than its absence? For the most part, these are moral judgments made by other people whose goal is to shame, influence, manipulate. Why should money be a source of shame in a free country? If there is nothing shameful about earning money or creating wealth, then it follows that there can be nothing shameful about giving it to another generation. It follows, then, that inheriting money cannot be more "evil" than making it in the first place.

Furthermore, those designated as heirs (or beneficiaries of trusts) are guilty of nothing more than an accident of birth. At law, they are the "natural objects" of their parents' bounty. In a country operating with a free economy, why should that be a source of shame?

Trustfunders who haven't thought these things through are lost sheep. I know the breed well. They're ashamed of their wealth and keep it in the closet. They remind me of the guilty homosexuals whose sexuality presents as a sort of deer-in-the-headlights syndrome.

And if anyone can explain why the presence of money should be any more a source of guilt than the presence of sexuality, I'd like to hear about it.

I'm not sure that the comparison of money guilt to sexual guilt is completely apt, though. Such sexual guilt can at least be explained with reference to religion, because there are religious texts which condemn certain sexual practices. But even if we assume that these proscribed sex acts constitute actual sin, having money is not a sin in any religion of which I'm aware, unless Marxism is considered a religion.

Maybe that's it. Perhaps Marxism is the opiate of the rich?

Odd, because it isn't in their interests.

Ah, but addictions are never good for the addict. What makes Marxism so seductive and so addictive is that it alleviates the guilt. If you have wealth, but embrace socialism, all will be forgiven, and the guilt will seem to be erased. But there's that constant, nagging meme, that wealth is evil, that class conflict is justified, that property is theft, that poverty is violence. This creates endless cycles of guilt and atonement, guilt and atonement, as if the individual must constantly prove and re-prove his ideological purity in order to be absolved from sin over and over. But as long as the money is there, the original sin (a niche into which inherited wealth fits nicely) just keeps creating a steady stream of guilt. Somehow, there's always a sneaking suspicion that money means an evil thing called "privilege," and that being "of means" creates an inherent duty borne of guilt. Like an opiate, leftism thus alleviates the guilt that it creates.

Few stop to examine the rather ridiculous (and by now very old fashioned) underlying assumption that money is evil.

It's odd that this would survive in the post-modernist era of no truth, because once again, "if there is no truth, there is no injustice." (And thus, no need for the guilt.)

On the other hand, even if there is truth (and I think there is), how does wealth become evil?

posted by Eric on 08.24.07 at 02:05 PM

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Comments

I think you're guilty of using "guilt" as a straw man, though perhaps I'm guilty of a lack of charity for your argument about guilt and charitable Marxism.

Few would disagree with the statement that it isn't money per se, but its misuse that is evil. What necessarily follows is a discussion of what constitutes evil, and the Marxist would quickly reveal "not sharing" as an act of the lowest wickedness. Not sharing money is therefor evil, to the Marxist.

A component of the flaw in the Trust Fund Liberal thinking is the next step: if not sharing is bad, then forcing someone to share must be good. And if the forcing to share is performed to accomplish some selfless goal, such as curing puppies of Alzheimer's Disease or Saving The Planet, then it's Double Extra Good.

The consequences of bestowing money on them that don't earn it, and taking money from those who have done so, be damned. Likewise cursed as insignificant is the notion that a person can choose to do with his property what he wishes. Ironically, whether government "charity" will encourage or discourage a person with means from giving is never even considered, because "property" is a rather amorphous concept when sharing is considered the primary good.

Loren Heal · August 24, 2007 02:31 PM

I think guilt is a powerful motivator -- used to manipulate people from childhood on. Wealth equates with automatic guilt, and few inquire about charity.

Eric Scheie · August 24, 2007 05:15 PM

I think there is a difference between money you earn and money that is given to you. And while you may have the right to give your money to whomever you see fit, that doesn't necessarily mean that person you give it to has a right to receive it (in fact, as an attorney who sometimes deals in estate law, I know that the "right" to receive money is sometimes used to interfere with the right to give it--namely that certain parties have standing to challenge a will if they don't like how it distributes the money even if they did nothing to deserve that money).

I'm comfortable with the idea that people whose living is simply given to them have something to feel guilty about where people who earn it do not--because they have done nothing to deserve it. They cannot justify their expense account by reference to their own merits.

The problem with the trust-fund liberals, in my opinion, is that they lack the courage of their convictions. Instead of giving away their undeserved comfort, they console themselves with supporting government programs that purport to give comfort to everyone.

tim maguire · August 24, 2007 05:58 PM

Unfortunately, it isn't just trust fund liberals. I know lots of people who retired in their 30s, and a few in their 20s, with tens of millions of dollars and up. (I went to the wrong startup.) They were liberal to left before they got rich, and becoming obscenely rich didn't moderate them in the least.

My favorite was the guy that I used to work with who, when he wasn't telling you about racing his vintage Ferrari on the weekend, was yammering on about Noam Chomsky and what a great thinker he is.

Clayton E. Cramer · August 24, 2007 11:39 PM

I wonder whether quick and easy wealth might not tend to generate similar feelings of guilt to those generated by inherited money. Trial lawyers can make millions through referral fees, or settling cases with a single phone call. Is it any accident that they tend to support left-wing causes?

OTOH, the guy who works his ass off and struggles for a lifetime building a business from the ground up might not feel the same guilt over the wealth he has created.

The guy dies, and the money goes to the wife. Should she feel guilty? Why? And the kids he raised, of what are they guilty? Is their guilt greater than that of John Edwards?

Eric Scheie · August 25, 2007 09:03 AM

Hoarding wealth is blameworthy, I think, the same as "not sharing" to Loren's Marxist. How to alleviate the guilt and still not have to share? Lobby government to force other people to share. You get credit for caring, and you don't have to spend your own money. Running through this way of thinking is the unexamined belief that government money appears from nowhere.

Around my house we sometimes ask, "Do you want this bad enough to do it yourself, or do you only want it bad enough to ask me to do it?" Wealthy leftists should answer the same question. (And I know, some do put their money where their mouth is.)

notalawyer · August 25, 2007 01:21 PM