I grew up in a blue collar household. My family was in the heating and air conditioning business. My dad was a union sheet metal worker. We never had a lot of money, but we had the basics required to live a peaceful, middle-class existence: a mortgage in the suburbs, health care, vacation pay (though we couldn't really afford vacations very often), sick pay (though my dad didn't call in sick for over 20 years), and the promise of a retirement pension. My siblings and I were able to attend private Catholic schools (they were abundant and very affordable in the midwest). In other words, while it might not always have felt like it, we were living the American Dream. Not the elusive, anecdotal version where you pull yourself up from poverty by the bootstraps and become a millionaire, but the one where you agree to work hard for 40-60 hours each week in exchange for the opportunity to raise a family and enjoy life a bit.
I'm quite sure that my parents hoped that my siblings and I might live out that other American Dream - the millionaire version. After all, don't all parents hope their children will surpass their own level of success and provide for them in their old age? But I never really had such aspirations. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because the middle class seemed like such a good deal to me that I just didn't feel the need to yearn for more. It's important to note that that doesn't mean I haven't been willing to work every bit as hard as someone who yearns for great wealth - only that great wealth has not been the inspiration for that work.
So wealth has never been a motivating force in my life, but I do not for a moment begrudge others their own wealth. Without the people at the top, there would be no middle for me to belong to. But the people at the top have forgotten the corollary: Without the people in the middle, there can be no top for them to belong to. It is not their wealth that is a problem. It is the disparity that has been growing for thirty years. A rising tide must lift all boats in order for the social contract to work. If you don't think the growing disparity is a problem, then you must answer these questions: How wide would you allow that gap to grow? Practically speaking, isn't there going to come a point at which the people at the bottom can no longer afford to increase the wealth of the people at the top? And hasn't our monarchical past taught us that concentrated power and wealth will never stand? Isn't that why we came here? They may not call themselves Kings and Queens any longer, but they serve the same function.
But I digress. Allow me to get back on track by proposing the following schema for classifying people on a psycho-financial basis:
a) People who are motivated by a desire for wealth and have it.
b) People who are not motivated by a desire for wealth but have it.
c) People who are motivated by a desire for wealth but do not have it.
d) People who are not motivated by a desire for wealth and do not have it.
This simple schema would explain a few vexing phenomena. Michael Moore, for example, can't get through an interview without someone asking how he can be such a vociferous critic of a system that has benefited him so greatly. The answer is simple - he is a Type B individual. It would be hard to make the case that Michael Moore got into documentary filmmaking with the goal of becoming extraordinarily wealthy - especially when his films have always been brutal attacks on the moneyed elite. He became rich because his own passions resonated with the public - not because he set out to become rich.
Many successful people fall into this category. Consider doctors - good and bad ones alike. Some got into medicine out of a genuine interest in medical science or a passionate desire to heal. Others got into the field because doctors make really good money. I think you would find that conservative doctors fall into the latter group. You are probably more likely to find them on the golf course than volunteering for Doctors Without Borders. Again, either type might turn out to be a brilliant or incompetent physician based on many other factors. The motivation is only important within this schema.
Now let's consider folks like Joe the Plumber. These are the people Thomas Frank wrote about in What's the Matter With Kansas? They present a conundrum in that they appear to be advocating against their own self interests with their votes and voices. I would suggest that these are Type C people. They hope(d) or plan(ned) to be rich one day and are thereby naturally sympathetic to those who have achieved the goal that motivates their own existences, even if their own progress toward that goal is not going as well as they'd hoped.
Type A individuals are easy to spot. Watch the new film Margin Call for a magnificent case study of them. The movie presents a meticulously layered portrayal of the various types of people who fall into this category. They are not simply the gross caricatures of the wholly evil suits that you might expect. They include: Peter (Zachary Quinto), the brilliant and earnest former rocket scientist who stumbles upon the data that is about to bring the economy crashing down in 2008; Eric (Stanley Tucci), the former bridge builder who is laid off unceremoniously at the beginning of the film after 20 years; Sam (Kevin Spacey), the fast talking, fast dealing, show-me-the-money boss who first appalls us when he is more devastated by his dying dog than by the massive number of human beings he just laid off, but later displays the dying remnants of his conscience and humanity but is ultimately unable to redeem himself; John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), the financial automaton (clearly modeled on Dick Fuld), whose only concern in the world is the survival and enrichment of himself and his firm at any cost.
These men could not be more different from each other in their biographical histories and personality types. What they have in common is that each of them chose wealth over everything else, as evidenced by their career choices. They left behind families, careers, passions, and principles to push money around, much of it into their own pockets. The longer they do it, the colder they grow to the world around them. They more money they get their hands on, the less important everything else becomes. You can argue that these are merely fictional characters, but you cannot argue that anyone goes into the money business out of any personal passion other than a passion for money. In fact, you will fail in the financial sector if you are not motivated by the desire to make massive amounts of money. I am not here to make the case that this is or is not a valid passion - I am simply trying to establish that there is a difference between people with that passion and people without it.
Moving on. I suspect that most of us fall into Category D. Sure, maybe we buy a lottery ticket now and again or speculate about what we would do with a million dollars, but our lives are motivated primarily by the desire to live a fulfilling life. Money is a means to an end for us, not the end itself. If we see improvement in our personal wealth, it is generally modest and allows us to pay off a little debt, make a home improvement, save it for a rainy day, or treat ourselves to something nice - like a new television. Or a sweater. So for us, a discussion about the distinction between making, say one million dollars and two million dollars is not something we can really engage in with any degree of seriousness. Whether Albert Pujols will sign a $200 or $300 million dollar contract is sort of an absurd abstraction to us. That would be 4,000 - 6,000 years at my current household income, just to give you some perspective. (Plus, he probably gets health and dental benefits for the whole family. I pay $400/month for my high deductible plan and I spent about $1600 on dental work last month.)
This brings us full circle to the question of disparity. I don't know anyone who really gives a rat's ass how much money rich people make. God speed to them and their money. But that attitude was formed in an environment in which the better off they were, the better off we all were - even if just a tiny, little, eensy-teensy bit. So unless you can explain how this gap could possibly grow unchecked, you have stumbled upon the fundamental complaint of the Occupy movement. And I mean you'd have to explain it in practical, economic terms. You can't just say "It's their money, they earned it, we shouldn't spread the wealth around, stop begging for handouts," etc. You have to explain the difference between the current imbalance and the sort of plutocracy our system was supposed to be an improvement on. You also have to explain why, if business is so oppressed by economy killing regulations and taxes, are the rich still getting richer? That argument might have some credibility if all sectors were suffering equally, but they are not. The folks at the top are still getting wealthier. The rest of us are still out here trying to pull our weight - but the rewards are being funneled to the top.
I would like to be a conservative. I would like to live in a world in which unions are not necessary because employers simply do right by their employees. I would like to live in a world in which we don't need to raise taxes on millionaires because millionaires are fairly distributing the wealth down through the ranks of their companies. Unfortunately, the system has run amok and the guys at the top have grown too disconnected from the real world that the majority of us live in. They've distorted the system so that it is making less and less sense for the rest of us to participate in it. Whereas the Tea Party has an abstract argument about the sustainability of our national debt in the long term, OWS is about something tangible. You can malign the OWS movement all you want for its sloppiness, but is simply a natural, populist reaction to the reality. There is no reason to expect it to be a highly refined movement. It is the stuff of revolutions, not of tidy political calculation.
So wealth has never been a motivating force in my life, but I do not for a moment begrudge others their own wealth. Without the people at the top, there would be no middle for me to belong to. But the people at the top have forgotten the corollary: Without the people in the middle, there can be no top for them to belong to. It is not their wealth that is a problem. It is the disparity that has been growing for thirty years. A rising tide must lift all boats in order for the social contract to work. If you don't think the growing disparity is a problem, then you must answer these questions: How wide would you allow that gap to grow? Practically speaking, isn't there going to come a point at which the people at the bottom can no longer afford to increase the wealth of the people at the top? And hasn't our monarchical past taught us that concentrated power and wealth will never stand? Isn't that why we came here? They may not call themselves Kings and Queens any longer, but they serve the same function.
But I digress. Allow me to get back on track by proposing the following schema for classifying people on a psycho-financial basis:
a) People who are motivated by a desire for wealth and have it.
b) People who are not motivated by a desire for wealth but have it.
c) People who are motivated by a desire for wealth but do not have it.
d) People who are not motivated by a desire for wealth and do not have it.
This simple schema would explain a few vexing phenomena. Michael Moore, for example, can't get through an interview without someone asking how he can be such a vociferous critic of a system that has benefited him so greatly. The answer is simple - he is a Type B individual. It would be hard to make the case that Michael Moore got into documentary filmmaking with the goal of becoming extraordinarily wealthy - especially when his films have always been brutal attacks on the moneyed elite. He became rich because his own passions resonated with the public - not because he set out to become rich.
Many successful people fall into this category. Consider doctors - good and bad ones alike. Some got into medicine out of a genuine interest in medical science or a passionate desire to heal. Others got into the field because doctors make really good money. I think you would find that conservative doctors fall into the latter group. You are probably more likely to find them on the golf course than volunteering for Doctors Without Borders. Again, either type might turn out to be a brilliant or incompetent physician based on many other factors. The motivation is only important within this schema.
Now let's consider folks like Joe the Plumber. These are the people Thomas Frank wrote about in What's the Matter With Kansas? They present a conundrum in that they appear to be advocating against their own self interests with their votes and voices. I would suggest that these are Type C people. They hope(d) or plan(ned) to be rich one day and are thereby naturally sympathetic to those who have achieved the goal that motivates their own existences, even if their own progress toward that goal is not going as well as they'd hoped.
Type A individuals are easy to spot. Watch the new film Margin Call for a magnificent case study of them. The movie presents a meticulously layered portrayal of the various types of people who fall into this category. They are not simply the gross caricatures of the wholly evil suits that you might expect. They include: Peter (Zachary Quinto), the brilliant and earnest former rocket scientist who stumbles upon the data that is about to bring the economy crashing down in 2008; Eric (Stanley Tucci), the former bridge builder who is laid off unceremoniously at the beginning of the film after 20 years; Sam (Kevin Spacey), the fast talking, fast dealing, show-me-the-money boss who first appalls us when he is more devastated by his dying dog than by the massive number of human beings he just laid off, but later displays the dying remnants of his conscience and humanity but is ultimately unable to redeem himself; John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), the financial automaton (clearly modeled on Dick Fuld), whose only concern in the world is the survival and enrichment of himself and his firm at any cost.
These men could not be more different from each other in their biographical histories and personality types. What they have in common is that each of them chose wealth over everything else, as evidenced by their career choices. They left behind families, careers, passions, and principles to push money around, much of it into their own pockets. The longer they do it, the colder they grow to the world around them. They more money they get their hands on, the less important everything else becomes. You can argue that these are merely fictional characters, but you cannot argue that anyone goes into the money business out of any personal passion other than a passion for money. In fact, you will fail in the financial sector if you are not motivated by the desire to make massive amounts of money. I am not here to make the case that this is or is not a valid passion - I am simply trying to establish that there is a difference between people with that passion and people without it.
Moving on. I suspect that most of us fall into Category D. Sure, maybe we buy a lottery ticket now and again or speculate about what we would do with a million dollars, but our lives are motivated primarily by the desire to live a fulfilling life. Money is a means to an end for us, not the end itself. If we see improvement in our personal wealth, it is generally modest and allows us to pay off a little debt, make a home improvement, save it for a rainy day, or treat ourselves to something nice - like a new television. Or a sweater. So for us, a discussion about the distinction between making, say one million dollars and two million dollars is not something we can really engage in with any degree of seriousness. Whether Albert Pujols will sign a $200 or $300 million dollar contract is sort of an absurd abstraction to us. That would be 4,000 - 6,000 years at my current household income, just to give you some perspective. (Plus, he probably gets health and dental benefits for the whole family. I pay $400/month for my high deductible plan and I spent about $1600 on dental work last month.)
This brings us full circle to the question of disparity. I don't know anyone who really gives a rat's ass how much money rich people make. God speed to them and their money. But that attitude was formed in an environment in which the better off they were, the better off we all were - even if just a tiny, little, eensy-teensy bit. So unless you can explain how this gap could possibly grow unchecked, you have stumbled upon the fundamental complaint of the Occupy movement. And I mean you'd have to explain it in practical, economic terms. You can't just say "It's their money, they earned it, we shouldn't spread the wealth around, stop begging for handouts," etc. You have to explain the difference between the current imbalance and the sort of plutocracy our system was supposed to be an improvement on. You also have to explain why, if business is so oppressed by economy killing regulations and taxes, are the rich still getting richer? That argument might have some credibility if all sectors were suffering equally, but they are not. The folks at the top are still getting wealthier. The rest of us are still out here trying to pull our weight - but the rewards are being funneled to the top.
I would like to be a conservative. I would like to live in a world in which unions are not necessary because employers simply do right by their employees. I would like to live in a world in which we don't need to raise taxes on millionaires because millionaires are fairly distributing the wealth down through the ranks of their companies. Unfortunately, the system has run amok and the guys at the top have grown too disconnected from the real world that the majority of us live in. They've distorted the system so that it is making less and less sense for the rest of us to participate in it. Whereas the Tea Party has an abstract argument about the sustainability of our national debt in the long term, OWS is about something tangible. You can malign the OWS movement all you want for its sloppiness, but is simply a natural, populist reaction to the reality. There is no reason to expect it to be a highly refined movement. It is the stuff of revolutions, not of tidy political calculation.
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