"This is your brain on money: Why America’s rich think differently than the rest of us"

[applegrove]

This is your brain on money: Why America’s rich think differently than the rest of us

by Sean McElwee at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/11/this_is_your_brain_on_money_why_americas_rich_think_differently_than_the_rest_of_us/

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A famous economist once wrote,


“This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

The economist was not Marx, but Adam Smith.

In “The Son Also Rises,” Gregory Clark finds that wealth can persist for 10 or more generations. But biases, like the self-serving bias and optimism bias, lead the wealthy to attribute to themselves what is actually caused by factors beyond their control. Lucky people are seen as skillful, and are constantly worshiped for their success. Eventually they begin to believe what others say, leading to a narcissistic personality — or as Paul Piff says, “characteristics we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.”

There’s an apocryphal story in which F. Scott Fitzgerald says, “The rich are different from you and me,” and Ernest Hemingway retorts,“Yes, they have more money.” In his story, “Rich Boy,” Fitzgerald writes of the wealthy: “They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.”

All humans all delusional. It is only the rich who have that delusion fostered. All humans are, to some extent, assholes. But only rich people can get away with it




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[applegrove]

1. I grew up around people who were

well off. My family had a good amount of Nova Scotia presbyterian humility. We are totally self effacing. And I thank god for that every day.

[Octafish]

2. GOP absolutely attracts assholes.

And they, like all committed fascists, think they're better than everybody else.

Thanks for the heads-up, applegrove. Interesting survey of who they are. Great, great quotes, too:

“The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money’s properties are my – the possessor’s – properties and essential powers… I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless?”

What they most fear, is losing their cash and living poor. It's why they jumped from the skyscrapers when the stock market crashed in 1929.