Reply #55: I don't understand "smart". [View All]

[Igel]

Or "deserving."

If you're poor, does that mean you're stupid and deserving of what you have? Stupid and undeserving of being poor? (What does "deserving" and "undeserving" mean if what you have is what you earned?)

If you're poor, does that mean you're altruistic and possessed of all human qualities (which would, of course, include greed).

I've had the fortune--neither good nor ill--to be around some rich people. Some were self-made and were, in some sense, "smart." Some would have failed college--wrong kind of smarts. Others were smart and got rich through being inventive and clever in a smart way. They were crazy busy, all of them. Many of them were lucky--but they all made sure that if luck happened, they were ready to take advantage of it. Sometimes they seemed to make their own "luck."

I wouldn't call them greedy. "Savvy," perhaps. They figured that it was a competition and if they competed and got more money than others, that's the way it worked. This was true for the businessman, the owner of a string of garages, the inventors. Every dollar they earned came at the expense of somebody else--a competing garage, a competing company, some other item that a consumer could buy.

Others were spoiled. This doesn't mean they didn't work hard--they didn't exactly live a life of leisure. One got his PhD and taught at a major university, finally deciding that he was fed up with spoiled grad students and wanted to work only with undergrads. Others were kept busy on boards, organizing things, involved with NGOs. Some started businesses. They weren't savvy, in many ways they were clueless. But I wouldn't call them "greedy."

Finally, some didn't work hard or intensively, but managed to keep themselves busy doing drivel.

Some were just venal. "Greedy" doesn't handle it; "grasping" was better for some. Matter of fact describes others--they had the cash, that was that. In many cases, "whiney" suited them much more. Then again, that also describes my aunt who may have had a few million when she died, but scraped and saved to get to that amount.

On the whole, they weren't greedier than the poor people I've known, who were more than willing in many cases to find a way to wheedle a promotion or overtime from their boss that could have gone to somebody else no less willing, who did things to hurt others' chances of promotion or get them in trouble. It may have made a $40 difference instead of a $400,000 difference, but it was still greed. The amount doesn't matter--in many ways, the lesser amount hurt a coworker more than the greater amount hurt a competitor.

Many of them were actually nicer. They didn't have to scrabble and scramble to make ends meet, they'd had cushier lives and so assumed that it should be that way for everybody. Some were clueless, most weren't. It really rather depended on how they came into their money. The worst were women who married into it or people who got it by virtue of something like singing or sports. The first had to prove they were superior; the second were flattered into and came to believe that they were important. Neither were especially savvy, smart, altruistic, or nice, even if they did have ideologies and images to put over their adoring socialite admirers or fans.