http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/
You have probably heard about studies that show CEOs are
more likely to cheat on games (even with no rewards) by self-reporting
higher scores (with no outside verification). The same applies to rich
people. In a computer-simulated die toss game, the richer participants
in their study were more likely to cheat and report scores that were
mathematically possible, but actually impossible due to the hidden logic
of the sim. The narrative seems reasonable: rich people are competitive
and may lie to increase their chances of winning if they can get away
with it. Their personal payoffs for winning unethically outweigh the
possible consequences of getting caught, and that calculus may not apply
as much to the sub-rich, where consequences dominate (jail, getting
fired, etc.).
Lastly, what happens when non-rich people "feel rich" and
vice versa? The researchers had people play a rigged game of Monopoly,
where a randomly decided player (of various personal wealth levels) got
to be Goldman Sachs (more starting $, more die rolls, got to have the
car playing piece). It was about mathematically impossible to lose from
that position. During the game, the Goldman player tended to exhibit
more bossy, dominant behaviors. When asked how they felt about the game
results, the Goldman player was more likely to take personal credit for
their success rather than acknowledge their randomly-assigned
advantages. We know that manifests itself in real life, as from our
previous discussions, the rich may feel OK with tax evasion because they
feel they already paid enough, and they deserve to keep more of it due
to their cunning/superiority. Conversely in the Monopoly game, those in
the position of the disadvantaged player tended to exhibit more
compassionate, gracious behavior (despite their actual social class).
Extrapolating these results out to the real world, I
suppose we shouldn't be surprised when the most rich and powerful among
us behave badly and are caught in greed/ethics scandals. And for the
rich who behave well and can still be generous to others (like Buffet),
they have particularly impressive discipline and caring, especially
considering the temptations, lack of accountability, and pernicious
culture of their elite social class. I doubt many rich people read the
PNAS journal, but the authors caught hell after their paper was
published. I think it's pretty hard to be totally uncaring
(sociopathic), so deep down even the biggest rich jerks probably realize
they are doing wrong, but as I said their incentive structure compels
them to knowingly do wrong. They don't like being reminded they are
being bad, so of course they lash out or make excuses. And it's no help
that our tax-legal system heavily favors the rich and is chock full of
loopholes. They use it as a cop out. My business ethics prof said
something like, "Legal does not guarantee ethical. If you measure your
actions by the law alone, you're in trouble." But maybe all this stems from our society's value system. Money is the literal currency and also social currency for status (which gives you access to pretty spouses, creature comforts, fame, and other perks). We don't celebrate the kindest or meekest or most generous among us. We celebrate the richest, biggest jerks who take what they want and don't care about anyone else. In fact we suck up to, idealize, and emulate them - even post Recession. I am fairly sure such phenomena would not occur in cultures where materialism, egotism, and such are not as valued, like Amazonian tribes or Tibet before China's ethnic cleansing. This comes back to the "selfish gene" argument. The animal side of us needs to be selfish and dominant to propagate our genes. But we are social beings too; if we are too sociopathic, then we will alienate ourselves, which may imperil our progeny. So kindness in a sense is a form of selfishness, but I think too much kindness is a better problem to have than too much greed.
The rich are just doing what their culture enables and compels them to do. Maybe the fault lies with the 99%. The rich are always outnumbered. Starving, abused peasants burned and hung the rich when they went too far in Europe and Cuba. We just take it in America, because our goal is not to have a more just society of "liberty, equality, fraternity", but to join the ranks of the rich one day and lord over the 99%. So that is the problem. We don't fight inequality and abuse because we are totally fine with such an unjust system, as long as we eventually get to the top. But obviously that is a pipe dream for the vast majority of us. But that is the evil genius of the system, it traps us in our own unrealistic ambitions and hopes. Maybe the "new" American Dream (where the goal is to be the man, not just middle class) is actually bondage rather than emancipation. It tells us if we commit ourselves 100% to our careers (work almost to death), comfort, fun, wealth, status, and all that can be ours. But that won't happen for everyone, even if all they do is work. And all that effort in vain actually serves to make the execs and investors (who have already made it) richer. Talk about a scam.
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I always wonder what is really being measured in these
studies. Is the car really correlated to wealth or spending? If i CAN
buy a luxury car but don't am i less likely to be an A-hole?
And who cheats at games with no reward or really cheat at all?
Re: luxury cars, of course not all purchasers are actually rich, and as you said, plenty of rich don't feel the need to buy them. It's maybe a self-selection phenomenon. The ones who drive them are more likely bought into the image message, and therefore may be predisposed to act like a "typical BMW driver."
Even worse... crazy rich Asians!!! http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-
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