Does Wealth Make It Easier To Be A Good Person? — Part I
People say that when you get rich, you inevitably become cold and heartless. Money messes with your morals, and the proverbial tightened fist that comes with greater wealth is a conspicuous reality in today’s society. The “Eat The Rich” mantra has especially gained intense popularity and it is now commonplace to protest against the capitalistic crimes of the Global 1%.
So, the fact is simple. When you are filthy rich, you are bad. Because people perceive you as bad. Of course, you might also be bad because your wealth stems from the back-breaking labor of the less privileged, or perhaps because your resources afford you the ability to get away with wrongdoings that others would be rapidly penalized for. But that is not as important as people’s perception of your depravity.
Thing is, as much as we can fantasize and speculate about how evil rich people are, we hardly know them. Our perception of their culpability is based on two major things; [I] what they are portrayed to be in mass media and, [II] our subjective projection of who we think they are. In essence, we do not know these people, and therefore we have no concrete proof of their hypothesized wickedness.
This conundrum therefore presents another insidious dilemma: depending on our intuition and the external sources that we consume information from, we can just as easily see a rich person as the epitome of moral uprightness.
The cards of capitalism-derived morality are stacked in the wealthy’s favor; the more effort you put into your work, the more of a better person you are. As long as you wake up early, work 24/7, put in extra hours at your job, and do all the other things that keep the wheel of capitalism turning, then you have more worth as a human being. Right?
The wealthy apparently did this–or are still doing this–to build their wealth. Therefore, it is easy to ascribe integrity unto someone who has the money and resources proving these ostensible sacrifices. Of course, the inherent fallacy of this logic is that working hard 24/7 is not unique to millionaires and billionaires, yet there are only a handful of them on the planet.
With these cards already in play, the next logical step for a wealthy individual to “become a good person” is using money. With money, you can buy your way into others perceiving you as moral and good. Basically, you can buy the veneer of goodness, without actually embodying it. Much effortlessly than a poor person would. This is where concepts like virtue signaling, elitist philanthropy and savior complexes thrive and taint any genuine, inherent goodwill on the part of benefactors.
So, does wealth make it easier to “be a good person?” Yes. But it can also make it easier to “be a bad person” as well. Or better put, “to be perceived as bad vs. good.” Wealth has the power to influence people’s perception of who we are, either for the positive or negative. Before making judgments of character, consider all sensible facts separate from the social positions of those who you are trying to critique.
