why rich people think (or at least say) they're middle class

 

Brian Donahue followed Chris Christie recently around on the campaign trail and discovered what he sees as a "baffling" disconnect in Christie's public persona: his strong ability to relate to average people as a "regular guy" despite the fact that he is among the top 1% of wealthiest Americans.
Donahue writes in NJ.com:  When a man standing in front of you looks you in the eye and says, "I don't consider myself wealthy," you have to take him at his word that, well, he's probably not wealthy. But when that man has publicly released his tax returns that show his family's income falls within the top 1 percent of all Americans? Well, you have to start to wonder if something fairly bizarre is going on inside his head. Such was the case with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last week, who twice told reporters during a swing through New Hampshire that despite earning ten times the median New Jersey income, he does not consider himself rich. In the video above I examine that detachment in the context of a series of events that make them all the more remarkable: Christie's amazing ability to connect personally with voters and sway them to his side with his common touch. It's a knack he's got, and, should he actually run, one he's counting on to vault him back into contention for the nation's first presidential primary. Rich guy? Common man? How to square it all? Watch the video and let me know what you think in the comments below.
In a follow-up piece in the Montclair SocioBlog, Jay Livingston provides an excellent answer to Donahue's paradox by way of using the sociological concepts of "self-perception" and "reference group." 

wealth addiction

Is "greed good" as declared by Gordon Gekko? Sam Polk's article in yesterday's New York Times suggests otherwise. In fact, he gives a candid account of the problem he had, attributing his own drive for money to "wealth addiction." Although he amassed a sizable fortune as a Wall Street trader a few years ago, he never felt he had enough. Personal introspection, with assistance from psychotherapy, led him to understand that his greed, and that of others in the industry, is essentially the same as that with drugs or alcohol. Polk has since left Wall Street for social activism, starting Groceryships, an organization working to promote nutrition education among poor families.

does money make you mean?

In this recent TED-Talk, UC Berkeley social psychologist, Paul Piff, provides research drawing from board game behavior that having wealth, even within a contrived situation, decreases concerned and caring behavior with regard to others. This research mirrors earlier findings of Piff reported in this blog regarding the relationship between wealth and socially irresponsible behavior (see http://sounequal.blogspot.com/2012/02/rich-are-indeed-different-they-are.html ).  

wealth inequality: perceptions and reality

Although uploaded to YouTube last November, this animated video has gone viral in recent days. It provides a graphic overview about current inequalities in the U.S. by considering disparities in wealth in terms of (a.) how Americans think wealth is actually distributed, (b.)  how Americans believe wealth should be distributed, and (c.) how wealth is actually distributed. Of particular note is the great discrepancy between perceptions and beliefs versus reality: actual wealth inequality is so much greater than how we perceive it to be distributed and how we believe it should be ideally distributed. The video is an excellent example of how video can transform complex, abstract ideas into compelling, understandable terms. Read this story in the Daily Kos for the possible role of such videos in sparking public action and social change. For a conservative critique of the video, see this article from National Review Online. 

American Experience: biographies of wealth

PBS' American Experience recently broadcast documentaries on the life and times of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. Made in 2000, the 3+ hour treatment of Rockefeller and family is now available online, as is a new 2-hour examination of Henry Ford. Both documentaries include extensive supporting articles, clips, and interactives. Unfortunately, the first part of the early-capitalist trilogy by American Experience, that on Andrew Carnegie, is not available online, although many of its clips and supporting documents are (one of the more interesting ancillaries is an article on Carnegie's relationship with the Social Darwinist, Herbert Spencer).

world's wealthiest individuals

 

Visualize the world's 100 richest people via this new interactive graphic available at Bloomberg.com, allowing drill-down to wealth estimate, place, industry, source (self-made/inherited), age, and sex. Graphic is a useful complement to annual World's Richest compilations provided by Forbes (latest edition includes a "25th anniversary" timeline, encouraging users to reflect on the changing fortunes of world's wealthiest over past quarter century). See also latest edition of Forbes 400, The Richest People in America.

Django won't tell you (nor will Lincoln)

Although two movies centered around American slavery were nominated today for "best picture" Oscars, neither will give you the "big picture" about that system. Imara Jones alludes to what Django Unchained "won't tell you" in her recent Colorlines article, but her observations quoted below equally apply to Lincoln.

1) Slavery laid the foundation for the modern international economic system.

2) Africans’ economic skills were a leading reason for their enslavement.

3) African know-how transformed slave economies into some of the wealthiest on the planet.

4) Until it was destroyed by the Civil War, slavery made the American South the richest and most powerful region in America.

5) Defense of slavery, more than taxes, was pivotal to America’s declaration of independence.

6) The brutalization and psychological torture of slaves was designed to ensure that plantations stayed in the black financially.

7) The economic success of former slaves during Reconstruction led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. 

8) The desire to maintain economic oppression is why the South was one of the most anti-tax regions of the nation. 

9) Many firms on Wall Street made fortunes from funding the slave trade.

10) The wealth gap between whites and blacks, the result of slavery, has yet to be closed.

you know you're wealthy when...

Talk over the past year or so about the "1%" and increasing taxes on high-income earners has generated considerable public interest in defining who is wealthy. See, hear, and read responses from various Americans to the prompt "You know you're wealthy when..." in this recent article in Marketplace's Wealth & Poverty blog. See also this related piece addressing if the objectively rich perceive themselves as being wealthy.

race and wealth inequality

This post was written by Paul Dean and originally appeared in The Sociological Cinema. 

This CBS news report shows dramatic wealth inequalities across race, and how the inequalities have increased dramatically during the Great Recession. Like Oliver and Shapiro's classic book, Black Wealth/White Wealth, the report documents that in 1995, the median white household had a net worth 7 times larger than black and Hispanic households. Citing Census data analyzed by the Pew Center, the video shows that in 2010 white households ($113,000) now have 18 times the net worth of Hispanics ($6,325) and 20 times the net worth of African-Americans ($5,677). It notes that part of this growing difference is that the net worth of most racial minorities is found in their homes, while whites are more likely to also own financial assets. The news team argues that this asset allocation explains why white wealth has rebounded significantly from its recent losses and increased the wealth divide. While this is true, they largely miss other important factors. For example, Melvin Oliver's 2008 report found that African-Americans were the subject of systematic predatory lending during the housing bubble that led to the Great Recession. He noted that "minorities were steered away from safe, conventional loans by brokers who received incentives for jacking up the interest rate" and that their mortgages had "high hidden costs, exploding adjustable rates, and prepayment penalties to preclude refinancing." This not only lead to a drop in the value of minority wealth, but actually stripped much of their assets as borrowers who defaulted on their loans. The video closes by saying "experts say it could be a decade before the wealth gap closes," although they do not cite any experts that say this. Viewers may question the optimism of this prediction and reflect on why it is likely to take much more than a decade for something like wealth (which is passed down from one generation to another) to be more equitably distributed across race. The video is a great accompaniment to the readings linked to above, and perhaps even this comedic video from Chris Rock on race and the differences between being rich and wealthy.