We always hear that all men want power and wealth, more or less. But I would argue that a lot of men don’t really want power; when you look at history, there are tons of whackos and despots who lorded over people and abused their power and craved more and enjoyed conquest and/or suffering; but I would argue that there were even more men who were content just to be rich, and not to be on the seat of power and influence.
I think most guys in America would like to have the Presidents money w/o being the President; rich but not famous, not influencing anything, not climbing any power ladder. Men in power positions are the ones in history who have the responsibilities, the danger of assasination by enemies and ‘friends,’ etc. Who wants that? Better just to be a nobody who lives a life w/o working, sitting on his ass watching television all day. Most of us, I claim, are not the political club/debate team guys from college- we just want to be Larry David.
One way of looking at wealth is that it is just a particular kind of power: the power to convince other people to give you things or do what you tell them. I think most people don’t get any particular enjoyment from causing others to suffer, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about power.
Yes. When your money can influence how the US Congress operates, isn’t that power? Or when your money can determine how people think (the media) isn’t that also a kind of power?
I guess you’re right that there are probably quite a few rich men who don’t do much to influence governments or the media. But still, as JasonFin says, having money often makes other people do things for you they otherwise wouldn’t.
Right, and I thought of it that way too when thinking of my argument- money is power- but when people say men want power, we all know they mean more then spending power and the power to be served while using your power to sit on your ass all day and do nothing, I think. You mention using power to influence Congress- that’s what I’m talking about. That’s the kind of power, influence stuff that most men don’t want, just the money.
I’ll take the cash, get a nice place in the middle of nowhere, and enjoy a more simple life. Gardening, hunting, fishing, reading. Do whatever you want, stay away from my life.
You can have the $$$ without the power trip, but you can’t have the power trip without the $$$!
I would wager that most men who have money don’t especially want money either. After the first few billion, theres really nothing you can do with money that can materially affect your standard of living. What most people want with money is status. They want to be the alpha male of the pack.
Big mansions, fast cars, giant islands, exotic arts, all of this isn’t about spending money, it’s about spending more money than the other guy.
But that is power. It’s power over yourself. You don’t have any money now–why don’t you do those things anyway? Because the need for money gives others power over you. You need money to buy food, clothing, shelter, cable television and drugs, therefore You must work or scam or steal. If you were independantly wealthy, (hence the term, see?) you wouldn’t have to do those things and therefore you wouldn’t work or you would spend your time doing work you enjoyed. The lack of money, or more accurately the disparity between how much you have and how much the rich have, robs you of power. Wealth doesn’t just equal access to the halls of power, wealth equals freedom.
Absolutely; I agree, as I’ve said above, that money is power, and living a life of luxury is power. My OP title is too vague, and does not take that into account.
My argument now is that when people claim that men always want power and even more power, that they are not just referring to the power which we have discussed- I agree, that absolutely is power, no denying it, but what these people refer to is almost always, if not always (I would argue) a different type of power, that of the leader and influencer and king and tyrant and boss and officer and…
I guess that is my argument, that people who make this claim are referring to this type of power and not to the other type of very real power. I’m sure a lot of sources claim something like this, don’t they? Perhaps not…
There are any number of behind the scene (or not so behind) power brokers who cared little about money. One who springs immediately to mind whose name would be familiar to many on this board is hizzoner Duh Mayor, Richard Daley (the first) of Chicago. Lived in a modest house all his life, a regular working Joe, a fearsome power in Democratic politics for more than a quarter-century.
As my boss said just last week: “You can’t name the top lobbyists in this state (Missouri) because they don’t WANT you to know their names.”
