Is Wealth a Fair Indicator of Character?

Great Debates
1

Somewhat rhetorical question. Forgive me if I quote myself here:

Anyway, posting that poem got me thinking: Does anyone here believe that to be true? In other words, can you confidently say that, in general, you can tell how hard-working and diligent someone is by the amount of money they have? And, conversely, the poor can be reliably counted upon to be relatively indolent, unwilling to pull themselves up from their station in life?

I wrote a while back that America has a kind of caste system, in my view, as demonstrated by the extreme difficulty with which people maintain upward mobility, especially when starting from poverty. I further argued that the cycle appears self-perpetuating, as the economic and social status of a parent will largely determine the quality of education received by their child, at least as far as their secondary schooling. And since income and ethnicity maintain such a close correspondence in social stratification, existing preconceptions about the nature and abilities of minorities (and the poor in general) are reinforced by flagging test scores and stagnant wages (all the more damnable in the midst of an economic boom).

Now, the tenets of social Darwinism frame a classic response to the widening disparity of rich and poor in this country (a disparity which is already the largest of any industrialized nation): they tend to blame the people who find themselves homeless, jobless, or foodless. They must not be good enough; they must not want it badly enough. This, obviously, relieves our own social institutions of any particular blame or responsibility for the plight of the American poor. Even though that line of thought pretty well ignores any social, cultural, or economic contexts, it seems to me to be a tempting rationalization for the (largely) upper-class members of the institutions which shape American attitudes and policy. These institutions, then, might reflect certain perceptions about the nation’s wealth which are not always mirrored in the general populace. (Newsweek’s cover a year ago, for example, proclaimed “The Whine of '99: Everybody’s Getting Rich But Me.”)

My point is that everybody, demonstrably, is not getting rich. In fact, given the inadequacy of the current poverty line and employment measurements, America’s “unwashed masses” are probably in worse shape than we like to think. So can this be attributed, in anyone’s mind, to the general failure of individuals to do what it takes to succeed (if you’re poor, you’re not really trying), rather than the simple necessity of a large underclass in a market-driven society (as per Adam Smith)? Or is it some combination of the two?

Naw, that’s not a loaded question at all…

(Wondering to myself whether MGibson or sailor will fire the first salvo…)

2

yes, in an inverse ratio.

3

**

I have no magical powers with which I may divine the contents of anothers soul. Therefore I must rely on my observations about their dress and personalities. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten better at this but I still make mistakes from time to time. (I was 16 when I realized my parents weren’t dummies and my sister’s boyfriend was indeed a “dirt bag.”)

In some cases I think it can be a decent indication of character. If you’re 24 years of age and the best job you can get is washing dishes at the local Pizza Inn I think that says something negative about your character. Yes I know there are exceptions but you asked “in general” whether this was true or not.

**

Some ethnic groups have traditions that have positive economic outcomes. Some of these traditions can include valuing education, a willingness to sacrafice immediate comfort for future security, and the willingness to become an entrepenuer. (I wish I could spell that.) Indians, the Chinese, and Jews are three such groups that I can think of off the top of my head. You can see similiar patterns in all of these groups on various continents and that shows me that it is more then just an accident.

**

Is it really widening? And if so and it is just a trend then there’s no reason to worry. One of these days the trend will reverse.

**

If you have no job, food, or a home then you are probably to blame. There are exceptions of course but most of the homeless aren’t interested in getting a job and getting off the street.

**

No, but for the most part our standard of living is still pretty good. I’d rather be living in poverty here then China, Cuba, all of Africa, or the Urkaine. For the most part even those in poverty have food and running water.

**

You’ll always have an underclass and there’s no reason to expect that to change. When you hear about primary wage earners with children who can only get minimum wage jobs why would you blame society?

I’m flattered. I must be known as some sort of regular if you’d mention me in your message. <sniff> I don’t know what to say. You like me. You really really like me.

Marc

4

I can only speak from my own, limited, general experience having met people from many economic and social rungs.

Wealth is not an indicator of character at all.

Not scientific, just a personal observation.

5

A person’s current financial status means nothing, only his financial history. If a person stays in the same social strata his entire life, nothing can be inferred from it. If someone is born rich, and stays rich his entire life, then he could be smart or stupid, a nice guy or a jerk; the same goes for someone born poor.

Therefore, the only criteria for judging peoplpe base on their money is mobility, upward or downward. If you were born poor but worked your way to the top, that should be taken into account. If you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and traded it away for booze and fast women, then that indeed says something about your character. Bear in mind, though, that luck is 50% of everything. Some people hit the jackpot, and some just can’t have a break. So take what I wrote with a grain of salt.

6

I know a man who claims that wealth is an indicator of good character and that poverty is due to character failings.

This man is wealthy and is also far and away the biggest jerk I have ever met.

I am inclined to believe that not only does wealth not indicate good character, but that anyone who seriously claims that it does likely has more money than character.

7

Define what you mean by “character”. The Mother Theresa kind of character, where you sacrifice your own comforts to help others, is inversely-correlated with wealth.

On the other hand, the character traits of working hard and forgoing immediate gratification go a very long way to accumulating wealth. I strongly believe that anyone who has these two traits can do whatever he wants to do in America. If you want to build wealth, then it will happen. It’s happened with me and my three siblings - we were born in a fairly poor family in the woods of East Texas, which accumulated some money as we were growing up. I was the only one who went to college right away, but I paid my own way. My older sister graduated when she was about 35. All four of us are now fairly comfortable. The two of us who went to college would be considered “wealthy” by most folks.

Other signs of character probably don’t correlate to wealth. The willingness to lie to get your way has both positive and negative impacts.

8

So what would you make of me?

I’m most likely going to be poor my whole life. It isn’t that I’m lazy or shiftless, or too stupid to get a job (I have a very nice one now). It’s that I don’t think that having lots of money or possessions is more important than having time to improve yourself and your community.

I’m living in a 1 1/2 basement apartment, but I like my apartment. I’ve learned the trick of being happy with less than I’m expected to have.

Money is not one of my priorities. That’s why, even though I do a great deal of work, most of it is not salaried.

So what can you infer about my character from my wealth?

9

I love the way these discussions always bring in the idea that homelessness for most people is a permanent status. Of course for some it is, the mentally ill and the addicted I’m sure will often resign themselves to this way of life. Isn’t the homeless situation in this country a little better now than it was ten years ago during that awful recession? Does anyone know for sure about this? I would imagine that many of the thousands of homeless families that we saw back then have since improved their status. Homelessness does appear to have improved in my city since that time.

I do not see how anyone can equate someone’s financial status with their overall character. Character I assume you would mean by their work ethic, ability to delay immediate gratification, manners, sense of responsiblity, etc. etc. Isn’t it true that many wealthy and upwardly mobile people cheat and commit crimes in order to attain their fortunes and keep them? Perhaps as often as poor people might manipulate and fraud the welfare system and other assistance programs.

Certain ethnic groups have been given credit for their achievements. The Jews and Chinese for instance. This is probably true. It is also very apparent that they have often been successful BECAUSE of their ethnic backgrounds not DESPITE it. There are practices in their religions and cultural backgrounds that ensure their success no matter what the environment. Separateness could very possibly be one of them. They create cultural pockets in society where they often support each other almost independently of the rest of the population. Jews support Jewish businesses, they are self supporting. Of course there have been many leaders in the black communtiy that have advocated this practice. Why for African Americans it has not caught on might have more to do with them being Americans than being African. And they do not share for the most part a common religion like the Chinese, Jews, and Indians. (I know Indians might not fit this category exclusively since all Indians are not Hindu, most are actually Moslem.)

Well, I need some lunch. And I’ve lost my train of thought. Does any of this argument make sense to anyone?

Needs2know

10

matt We can, of course infer absolutely nothing about your character based on this information.

MGibson

What nonsense.
Let’s think about what this may be an indication of

  • how much you enjoy working with dishes
  • ability to gain employment
  • education (maybe)
  • inclination to get employment
  • personal circumstances
  • performance in interviews
    From our own experience, I would have thought that most people know weatlhy individuals whom we consider to have a ‘good’ character, and wealthy individuals of whose character we are not so sanguine. Similarly I would expect that we all know ‘good’ people who are not wealthy.

This certainly appears to be anecdotal evidence of a complete lack of causality.

An equally good question to that posited in the OP might be “Is wearing glasses a fair indicator of character?”. One might even ask if facial hair was a good indicator, and demonstrates examples to ‘prove’ the point. It would all be equally meaningless.

Russell

11

I love how people paint minorities with such a broad brush, claiming that they are doing so poorly. This is an affront to the vietnamese, japanenese, chinese, cubans, indonesians, etc. who have done quite well.

What you (gad) really mean is that US blacks are not doing as well as whites. But that is really not to the point of the OP.

A self made millionaire definitely has my respect, as does a poor mexican immigrant with 5 kids and 2 jobs.

12

I don’t have much to add on this subject but I have a minor sidetrack for CurtC.

Mother Theresa died an extremely wealthy woman.

13

Mr.Zambezi

But why? Is the self made millionaire of ‘good’ character, or has the money been made using means you disaprove of? What if the hard-working immigrant is not a ‘nice’ person?

A self made millionaire who is deserving of respect, should be respected. A self made millionaire who is not deserving of respect should not be respected.

Surely it should be clear that the fact that they have improved their position has no bearing on their character.

Unless of course, all you respect is the ability to make money and to work hard under difficult circumstances, repectively - but that is unrelated to any value judgement of their character.

14

Looks like this question cannot really be answered because no one has defined what characteristics are considered “good character”.

Needs2know

15

Needs is right. Are we talking about morals, social skills, character? How do we define it.

Personally, I think that a good work ethic is indicative of good character, as are any number of traits.

This debate is akin to arguing about what is “Good.” Great for Socrates. Bad for Zambezi.

16

A good work ethic I can agree with you on Mr. Z. I too appreciate the same. Especially since I was married to a guy for years that didn’t have one. LOL

Needs2know

17

Not sure I quite understand this, Mr. Z. You’re telling me that what I “really mean” is that black people in the United States are, in general, not doing as well as white people, and that this is painting minorities with an overly broad brush. How so? It’s a demonstrable fact that quality of life indicators such as income, infant mortality, property ownership, etcetera cleave along certain ethnic lines in the U.S., for whatever reason. All my OP said (with regard to ethnicity) is that “since income and ethnicity maintain such a close correspondence in social stratification, existing preconceptions about the nature and abilities of minorities (and the poor in general) are reinforced by flagging test scores and stagnant wages (all the more damnable in the midst of an economic boom).” I stand by that assertion; it hardly seems controversial. And it does tie into the point of the OP–which is that many people view the poor as being poor through some fault of their own, as if poverty is an indication of laziness or indolence. This mindset is, in my opinion, exacerbated by the disproportionate number of minorities below the official poverty line, given this country’s sterling history of ignoring all causal context and judging people by factors over which they have little or no control (born poor, born black, born poor and black).

(As a mostly unrelated aside, I find it interesting that much of the stereotype of black people as “shiftless” or lazy stems from slavery, when many slaves would work only hard enough to avoid a beating. In fact, when factories opened down South, factory owners found that black slaves did uniformly horrible jobs while working the assembly line, and were forced to return them to “less complex” duties in the field. This was due, of course, not to some innate deficiency on the part of the slaves, but rather to their desire not to work in a hot, dangerous factory. They played dumb. Like if your wife asks you to mop the kitchen floor, and you completely muck the job up so that she’ll say, “Oh, you’re impossible! Never mind, I’ll just do it myself from now on.” If you see what I mean.)

18

Some of these arguments remind me of a cultural anthro class I took in college (thanx Wendy). The information provided (sorry no cite available yet) was that in the US, no matter how hard you work at education or employment, a child almost never leaves the socio-economic strata inhabited by the parents. This was regardless of racial, religious of economic status. There could be quite a bit of up & down movement within the strata (upeer-middle, middle, lower-middle) but very rarely would a person “rise above their birth station.” An interesting idea, given what our society thinks of itself.

Also, some of this is reminiscent of the “Protestant work ethic”, which says basically if you work hard & live modestly, you will be rewarded. I’m not sure how true this is in modern US society.

An interesting story about living within your means- Oprah Winfrey talks about how she rarely uses credit cards unless she can pay them off right away, only buys cars and other big-ticket items when she can afford to pay cash, etc. She says it’s because she hates having bills. When it was pointed out that, as one of America’s wealthiest women, she has little need to worry about such things, she replied that this was one of the major lessons of her youth, and that living below her means was probably why she is STILL one of America’s wealthiest women!

19

Oh, and if you’re going to judge me based on my job, knock yourself out. I am not only a great mom but a very bright business person.

The mom part, BTW, should be the higher-paying, more prestigious job, but whatever…

I do know that there is a generational gap in how people view each other. My dad is a great guy and very intelligent, but having never known any black people growing up, he had no real basis upon which to form an opinion in his youth, except for what he saw in the popular media. Same with homeless people or alcoholics. You know where that got him. His views have changed with experience over the years, but we can’t expect most people to be able to keep their minds open their whole lives, because too often these ideas are set in concrete during the formative years (scares me a lot). The “younger generation” makes a big show of being more tolerant and open-minded, but I’m not sure how true this really is.

20

Well, considering that working forty hours a week at minimum wage in most American cities is often insufficient to keep a single woman and a child at subsistence levels, I’d say the answer to that is “Not very true at all.” :wink: