> I think you're an optimist.
You say that like it's a bad thing! :-)
>There's no shortage of publicity about
> the very rich. There's a voyeuristic, almost pornographic interest in
> how much they have and how grandly they live. But the lust to
> expropriate barely comes up. Reverence for money is one of the
> foundational principles of this country.
I think it's important not to confuse fascination with admiration (think Paris Hilton). The Oprahs, Spielbergs and Trumps are characters on TV; their wealth is abstract -- they are not 'real' rich folks.
Real rich folks are those ordinary people interact with, like the surgeon who did dad's triple bypass last year, or the guy whose family owns the local Ford dealership. I find it hard to believe the average American has any understanding of what it really means for a douche bag hedge fund guy to make $25 million in one year. It's one thing to know the big numbers (and really, how many people do -- esp. outside of NYC?) it is quite another to appreciate them. This appreciation is, practically speaking, mostly only available to a relatively small class of people: those who go to college with the very rich, who read the same journals and newspapers they do, who have friends who are very rich, etc.
Secondly, there is little popular understanding of how many of the very rich make their money. It is one thing to think about paying your student loans or your mortgage back to 'the bank' -- it is another to think about how a big portion of that money is heading straight to the Upper East Side.
I mean, nothing ignites my inner Jacobin like pondering the assholes spending my student loan payments. -WD