Out of the Woods

Are the Rich more Likely to be Morally Challenged?

How pathetic for Robert Kraft, rich enough to pay for whatever sexual services he desires, to be caught in a shabby massage parlor in a ratty strip mall, not once but twice.

The local paper took advantage of this embarrassment of one super rich owner of a sports team—and not just any sports team-- to list some of the other instances of team owners falling afoul of the law for fraud, for being addicted to pain pills, for being blatantly racist. Other owners participated in major bribery schemes or were overwhelmed by gambling debts. Without quite saying so, the paper seems to suggest that the very rich team owners are often tempted to act very badly and often succumb to the temptations.

Is this just the envy of ordinary folks speaking? We work hard and toward the end of every month we are short of cash. So when the rich are embarrassed publicly we can't help gloating and boasting of our—supposed--moral superiority. You and I are not tempted to pay huge bribes to politicians or to run up $25 million gambling debts. So we can feel morally superior when we do not indulge in such behavior.

But perhaps our suspicions of the moral weakness of the very rich is not completely unreasonable. Let us ask: how did they get to be so rich? I am not asking what it is about Robert Kraft that makes him so much wealthier than I am. I cannot answer that question because I do not know Kraft. Does he work harder than I do, is he smarter, is he more interested in wealth than I am? I have no idea. But the question is not about the character and personality of the rich. It is about the system controlling our lives. What does this system require of us to become very rich or even moderately so?

It seems clear that competition is at the heart of our system; the winners must be prodigiously good competitors. The rich are better competitors. But competitions are of different sorts. Some are completely benign; in others the outcome is brutally destructive of some participants in the competition while others walk away with impressive wealth.

In some competitions, the winner simply worked harder, worked longer hours, was more focused than all others. The winner trained more frequently. Even at rest his or her thoughts were wholly taken up with the upcoming competition. Completely concentrated they win. This is a benign competition that produces exceptional performances. But it is only one kind of competition.

In the early days of the personal computer, anyone could purchase the parts and assemble a machine. I have done so myself. As a consequence a large number of small enterprises produced inexpensive but quite adequate table top computers. Bill Gates participated in this computer business, competing with many other entrepreneurs to found a profitable business producing personal computers. According to one biographer, Gates' style of competition was not benign. He did not try to get ahead of the pack by being more diligent or inventive. His energy was focused on putting his competitors out of business. His project was clearly destructive, to reduce the competition by underselling machines of other producers and ruining the competing business. This kind of competition aims clearly at the injury of the competition. Some athletes in team sports seek to injure members of the opposing team. Here competition is intentionally destructive.

A third form of competition injures third parties. Tobacco companies concealed the damages done by cigarettes. The health of consumers counted for nothing as compared to the company's bottom line. Similar competitions injuring third parties occur when companies pollute streams, dump toxic materials, use fracking techniques and hide their destructive effects.

Enterprises using these destructive forms of competition do not always end in the winners' circle. The owners of the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter FL where Robert Kraft is said to have enjoyed sexual services for $79 an hour are not likely to be billionaires even though they traffic Asian women, keep them locked up, and force them to do sex work. Here third parties are grievously injured. The perpetrators nevertheless do not become as rich as some of their patrons.

Some competitors however succeed to parlay their destruction of opponents or of third parties into obscene wealth. Instances of their techniques are everywhere. While the rich are rapidly getting richer, wages and salaries of common people have barely rise in the last 50 years. Although prices have risen steadily, the minimum wage has remained unchanged until recently. An energetic movement to raise the minimum wage encounters strenuous resistance from employers; they are determined not to pay a living wage. They, often champions of family values, also resist paid maternity and paternity leave. Their main interest is to raise their profits by keeping wages and salaries as low as possible. They compete strenuously and do not mind if their competition injures large groups of their fellow citizens. Nor should we forget how, in the past, the rich derived their wealth from keeping slaves, or exploiting black tenant farmers violently during the era of Jim Crow.

Yes, the rich are more likely to be competing with methods doing serious damage to large numbers of Americans. Are their moral stamina more fragile than that of most of their fellow citizens? I doubt it. The basic truth is that our economic system, placing competition at the center, encourages enterprising men and women to compete by doing serious damage to many others. In so doing successfully they not only earn lots of money and high social status but they do untold damage to citizens who do not earn a living wage, whose drinking wells are polluted or who are forced to work as prostitutes. That is the naked face of capitalism.