Psychologists from Berkeley (of course) conducted a series of
experiments on how wealth differences (real or perceived) affect social
behavior and ethical choices.
First, they conducted a
simple observation of pedestrian and driver behavior at an intersection.
They found that 90% of drivers do yield for pedestrians (as law and
safety demands), but of those who blew through, a significantly higher %
of those vehicles were classified as "luxury". Also luxury cars cut off
other drivers at a higher rate. A lot of things could be potentially
wrong with such a study, but the result seems logical - spending a lot
on a car with attached marketing messages like: you have arrived, you
are Mr. Badass, you deserve it, you're better - may motivate the driver
to feel that he/she (mostly he probably) doesn't have to stop for
"peasants" and is entitled to get to the destination unhindered. Or
maybe their social environment is very status conscious and competitive,
so driving is also an opportunity to demonstrate their perceived
superiority, or they may feel the need to drive like a jerk to fit the
mold of success (even if they actually want to drive more politely). Of
course this doesn't apply to all luxury drivers, and there are plenty of
jerks driving clunkers.
You know how politicians take candy from babies? Rich people
do too, literally. Controlling for various other attributes, they had
participants fill out a phony form in a private room. There was a small
jar of candy on the table, which they were told was for kids for the
next study later in the day, but they could have some if they wanted.
Participants labeled as "rich" (maybe above some cutoff for
self-identified household income, reference their PNAS paper for
details) took 2X more candy than non-rich. Even though they were
permitted to, typical conscientious thinking might be: I can buy my own
candy later, the kids will enjoy it more, I don't want to look like a
pig, etc. to motivate them to refrain. But maybe rich people are used to
getting better service and favors from others (with less regard for
sharing & limits), so they are conditioned to take when offered
without considering others.
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.
-----
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."
Re: cheating, we've all used cheat codes in video games
right? No actual reward there, but it's an easy way to progress in the
game and enjoy the winning feeling. I suppose if there are
no consequences (the comp won't refuse to play with you next time), why
not? The people who don't cheat may feel that cheating only hurts them,
so they're rather face the challenges and push themselves to master the
game and win properly.
Sorry I forgot to add in the OP, by no means am I
saying that armed revolt is the only way to make things better. We just
have to hold bad behavior to account, and change the incentive calculus.
We have to make it so costly to behave badly that even jerks will have
no choice but be civilized (whether insider trading or not yielding for
pedestrians). Criminal penalties may be a start, but the rich control
the legal-judicial process. We could also stop idolizing rich jerks, and
instead celebrate the ones who "do it right". Here's a crazy idea: why
don't we idolize the folks in the Apple commercial instead of the folks
that run Apple? And please let's stop emulating Kardashian, Zuck, etc.
And when we see bad behavior on the streets (by rich or otherwise), we
should call them out on it. Maybe they are beyond reproach, but at least
others will take notice that such conduct is detrimental and won't just
be blanket condoned. Racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia used to
be tolerated (and even encouraged) in US society. But gradually we used
education and alternative role models to shame those ideas to the
margins and private thoughts. We can do the same for "richism" too, but
it's a bigger challenge because it's more pervasive. But we have little
choice. Imagine if our society was actually 99% rich instead? What a
horrible place to live!
Even worse... crazy rich Asians!!!
http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Rich-Asians-Kevin-Kwan/dp/0385536976
