How much do the rich care about us?

Post Reply New Topic

Lately I've been thinking a lot about human nature and prehistory and I read recently that people used to live in "bands" of 30 to 50 individuals. One can imagine that humans at this time had an instinct to be kind to anyone who they identified as a member of their band and to treat everyone outside their band with relative indifference.

The human mind has not evolved much in the last 10,000 years of human history since the earliest civilizations, so it can be reasonably said that we still have the instincts of our ancestors. If we inherited these "band instincts" from our ancestors then one would think that we humans would naturally select a small group of individuals to be our "band" and treat the rest of the world with relative indifference. Indeed, that is exactly what I see in human behavior. We have our "band" and we are relatively indifferent to the suffering of those outside it. That's why we divide ourselves into political parties, countries, religions ect. That's why we cheer on the sports team representing our city and hope they clobber the team representing the opposing city. That's why even the people who dream of a world without poverty tend to care more about themselves and their friends then starving kids in Africa.

Now let's consider the average American upper class member. Who do you think he has selected as his band? How many members of the proletariat does he include in his band? I think the average upper class person has probably has selected other upper class people to be his band. I am by no means saying that all the rich in the world are all working together against the Proletariat. Rich people definitely compete with one another. The owners of Coke are definately competing with the owners of Pepsi. Notice that Coke and Pepsi are both run by many individuals, not just one individual. Coke an Pepsi are competing bands - just as one would imagine. The idea that the rich are all a part of one giant conspiracy is paranoid, but it is naive to think that there are no conspiracies. Conspiracies have happened all throughout history. There are probably around 20 small conspiracies happening in the world at any given time.

I am not saying that the rich don't care about us at all. After all, a farmer must care for his cows sow that they may continue to produce milk. The rich care about us enough to keep us consuming and working. Based on what I believe about human nature I think that the rich don't care about our well-being as long as we keep working and spending.

Some of you might consider me paranoid for believing all this, but I could just as easily consider you all naive.

I think thats the good thing about aspie outsiders who have never fitted into a band. We can overcome the tribal feel easier and see things more fairly, treat people more equally, relate to more different groups, less likely to be in a sport/racist mob etc.

I like how it allows us to look at the world from the outside and make interesting observations.

Regarding the OP, I half agree, half don't.

If that's 100% true, why are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett pledging to give away large portions of their fortunes (99% in Buffett's case) to charities?

On the other hand, a lot of rich people, in their day-to-day lives, especially the bankers and such who aren't famous, do fit your description.

So yeah, it depends on the rich person you're talking about. This is more proof that people can't be generalised to easily I guess.

Well, in the case of Gates, he's so rich that giving away massive amounts of his wealth has no impact on his quality of life...and some of the things he does is ultimately self-serving (supporting what he believes in regardless of how good it is for others).

It's hard to have compassion for everyone. Much of the ability to rise from poverty has everything to do with individual choice and not "circumstance." Hand a nice home to someone who is on welfare and they will likely wreck it and strip it for salvage. You can't help people like that, and you aren't hurting them by refusing to help them. You might as well hold your wealth to help those who are willing to help themselves.

This is why private charities do better than government welfare. Private charities can choose who to help, and donations come from those who believe in the cause.

The trouble is they don't need to care much. I.e. Sweat shops are pretty common where the law allows them (or the law isn't enforced). I think your analogy is more applicable to slavery, where the slaves (cows) are capital, and the owner 'suffers' a direct loss if his slaves get sick, die, etc. In a free-market(?)/free-worker situation people are a sort of public commodity. They can be treated as disposable, as there's always someone else to fill a job vacancy. So they can use people up and throw them away at a whim.

It is most advantageous for employers if workers are desperate and on the edge of survival. That way, they won't complain about anything -- low pay, bad working conditions, safety, and on and on. High unemployment is also advantageous for employers, as again, it keeps people desperate.

So, the wealthy classes have an interest in keeping the lower classes near-broke and desperate. It doesn't require an evil conspiracy -- it's just common sense, and the wealthy know it.

Another reason for them to want to keep the working people desperate is that if people have free time they can think, write letters to Congress, double check the lies on the news, write books, protest, and IOW change the system. There used to be a 91% tax on millionaires(?). I think now it's about 25%(?). How hard do you think they'll fight to keep that from ever happening again? Best to keep the middle class too busy to call their senators or watch the news (or have the time to sort through the BS of the news).

When I was growing up it only took one income to support a family. I don't see that anymore. Both parents work and the kids still have to take out loans to go to college. The middle class is becoming the working class, and the working class is getting their ass*s kicked.

The Coke and Pepsi corporations might compete on some levels, but on others they know they're on the same team. When it comes to which senators and presidential candidate to dontate to (which will be interesting with the Citizen's United SCOTUS ruling), it'll be the same people. The laws they want changed and in what way will also be the same.

So there are teams. And they fear the lower classes more than they do each other.

If you look at Central and South America you can see the pattern: the rich are rich, very secure, and few, and everyone else is on the edge of survival, "living like dogs." One can look at that as a middle-class American and think "oh, that's awful." But to many wealthy people, that is how the world is SUPPOSED to be.

The rabble are not meant to rule. "They are meant to beaten by the police when they strike. That's all they understand." -- said by a rich Argentinean woman in an interview.

There is also a pattern of a lack of social services/social safety net.

And none of that is accidental. It is a known recipe, and it has been done before (Latin America, Russia, Iraq). And there are people trying to implement it in the USA for about 30 years now. Decimating the middle class is a known and desired effect of this recipe. (Look up "the Chicago Boys" and Chile for that.)

It is all a bit fascinating, as it's a mix of economic ideas (which I think is really just super-sophisticated propaganda/religion), and human psychology.

Do people who are economically well off constitute a monolithic component in society? Among the rich there there those who are generous and those who are not. That arch capitalist Bill Gates is trying to figure out a way of giving half of his assets away to causes he considers worthy and which you too might consider worthy. Then there are rich folk who wish not only to hold onto what is theirs, but to grow it.

ruveyn

The rich only care about one thing: money. That's why they're rich. The main reason that rich people "donate" to charities is because it is a tax shelter, there is an economic incentive at tax time for the rich who give money to charities. So it may seem like they are altruistic, but the realty is if it were not profitable to give to charities then the rich most certainly would not.

That certainly seems true about some, but not all. My last employer was generous far beyond "keep working and spending", but they generally ignored whiny begging.

Yeah, I know...I'm guilty of over-generalizing in this case.

Apparently you want Gates to suffer the same misery as very poor folks suffer.

ruveyn

As a matter of ethical principle the rich do not owe the poor a thing. The only requirement that ought to be placed on the rich is that they do not wrong the poor.

No one has a positive duty to help or sustain a stranger unless he enters into a specific contract to do so.

ruveyn

Are you a consumer? Then the rich care about you--or more particularly, your spending habits.

Are you employable? Then the rich care about you--or more particularly, making a deal with you for your services.

Beyond that, why should they care about you if your lives don't intersect?

i care for people who struggle that i can see in my zone of personable distance.
i will help people who are worse off than me if i know them.

you should not condemn people who have made a buck or 2. they are the only people you can appeal to in times of serious trouble.

if all the people in the world were poor, then you would have no hope of benevolent salvation.

Some of the rich (not all of the rich) do care very much about customers - the public. Examples are: Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, and many others (my view).

A business writer, N. Hill, has gone into this in some of his many writings/lectures.

Some very rich people do have big hearts and sometimes this comes out only after they die when people discover what they did behind the scenes to help this or that worthy cause.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/

I know a club of rich people that are rumored in most conspiracy theories to be attempting to help the public in some way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry

Not at all. It makes perfect sense.