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Say It Loud, You're Rich and You're Proud

Timothy NoahPosted Wednesday, March 21, 2001, at 7:01 PM ET

"ADMIT IT, YOU'RE RICH." Thus begins a new advertisement appearing in the March 26 New Yorker (and also the March 25 New York Times Magazine and the April Atlantic Monthly). "Yes, you," it continues.

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No, it's no use looking surprised. Somewhere along life's meandering road you managed to pass that certain point, and here you are. One of them. One of those people who "normal" people whisper about, under their breath to their friends, and say politely, but with an undeniable trace of envy, "You know so-and-so, well they're pretty well off, comfortable, affluent, wealthy, rolling in it, (or simply) rich."

Recently, in the course of examining the pathologies of the idle rich (click here and here and here), Chatterbox briefly mentioned that the problem had spawned a burgeoning recovery movement. Until now, though, this movement had tended to lurk in the shadows, presumably because a great many non-rich people were liable to get angry if told that it was a burden to be wealthy. Now, just in time for congressional debate over eliminating the inheritance tax, that movement has come out of the closet.

The advertisement (click here to see it) is for U.S. Trust, a management and trust company founded in 1853 in order to advise that era's nouveaux riches on how to invest their millions. The "admit it, you're rich" ad is devised to speak to today's self-made millionaires. This throws Chatterbox for a loop. Based largely on his reading of The Millionaire Next Door, he'd come to believe that people who inherit vast fortunes are crazy spendthrifts but that people who create them are preternaturally sane penny-pinchers. Now he must consider the possibility that self-made millionaires are crazy too, though in a less gaudy way. They feel guilty about being rich! When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Many are, after all, baby boomers, and therefore likely to entertain fantasies about having overthrown the hierarchical society of their parents. In much the same way that our culture has encouraged baby boomers to deny that they are now grown-ups (but I don't feel grown-up!), U.S. Trust assumes it has also encouraged rich people to deny being, well, rich:

BUT I DON'T FEEL RICH!" you protest. "Why, I still hunt for bargains at the store, my favorite meal is a burger and fries, I can't remember how old my watch is, I still have to walk the dog at midnight, and the only chauffeur in our family is me."

Ah, but you are rich:

As an exercise, get out all the brokerage account statements you've stuffed into that old file and start adding them up--your mutual funds, IRA, 401(k), any deferred compensation, stock options, and if you've really been fortunate, whatever you made from that nice IPO. Now after you've tallied it all up, take a moment to consider your total. Underline it a couple of times. Then ask yourself this question. "Is this amount of money, I have worked hard for all my life, something I am truly capable of handling on my own?"

On one level, of course, this pitch is unbelievably icky. But on another level, it's socially quite useful. It won't do, after all, for the self-made rich to be crazy. Unlike their coupon-clipping heirs, these people run the country! Let's get them some help! Moreover, there's nothing more annoying than an obviously wealthy person trying to poor-mouth himself into the middle class. Better that this person own up to being loaded.

On the other hand, the suggestion that rich people need to learn how to assert themselves can't help but offend the rest of us, even if it's true. Echoing Jesse Jackson's "I am somebody!" and James Brown's "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud," the U.S. Trust ad importunes plutocrats to "Go ahead and say 'I am rich' one more time. It should feel a little better now." OK, they should say it. But could they say it a little more quietly?

E-mail Timothy Noah at .

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

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Reader Comments From The Fray:

[Notes from the Fray Editor: A flight of fancy from Publius: read his imagined dialogue between a rich couple here. Greg managed to link wealth, the pursuit of excellence and Fray posters Lilith and Hot Dog in one post. Many readers wanted to make points about the true riches in life, but nobody did it better than the first post below. And sometimes there's a line that just haunts the Fray team (even more than the one about the rats, below). This time it came from Bill Rogers, here, who said "I think people who don't have much money should be allowed to say they're rich too: it would level the playing field."]

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Read the headline then read the posts. It appears as if Slate just threw a piece of cheese into a cage full of severely depressed and starving rats. Does Slate get enjoyment out of this or are they simply keeping the needy busy?

Oh yeah, I'm rich. No credit card debt, I rent, my old truck is paid for, my kids love me, my wife loves me, I love them all more! I have very few close friends. I don't have TV. My real joy in life is helping stranded motorists, at no cost. I love to see the look and expression I get when I say "No need to pay me, I enjoy it". My life is not without bumps; stepson recently passed away, mother is in need of help everyday now. Life moves on.

--Rich Beyond Belief

(To reply, click here.)

What matters is not wealth but power, although the former tends to deliver the latter, which then is used to build the former. The original field of theory and study was called "political economy" for good reason. How disproportionate can the income and wealth of the top 10% (pick your unit) of a society be to the income and wealth of, say, the lower 50%, before minority rights and individual freedoms start to be lost, or other effects occur? I once asked the campaign coordinator of a well-known politician, "Well, what would be about the right proportions?" He/she flipped, and asked if asking a question like this could be legitimate under any conditions anywhere. An interesting moment. In my opinion, we need to ask questions like this all the time, and tell those who say "we're threatening the nation with class warfare" to take a hike

--Peter Cross

(To reply, click here.)

The ad was a nicely manipulative ploy (not that that is inherently bad in an advertisement). It is designed to be a feel good message to those who've made a pile and now presumably have more than they can adequately manage by themselves. It congratulates them not only for having accumulated mass quantities, but also for being down to earth and decent, almost ashamed of their good fortune; nice guys, rich but not snotty about it. Most rich people presumably don't want to be seen as stuck-up caricatures of some snobby elite class. They (presumably) want to be seen as just like everybody else, just a little more so. The downfall in the logic is that most of the well to do that I have known are far from shy about admitting it. They often (unsuccessfully) try to avoid bragging about what they have amassed, but they really do want people to know that they had that special something that enabled them to get a lot of stuff, thereby making them feel good about themselves. They're not necessarily bad people for being this way and most of us would be the same in their position. Anyway, the ad plays to them brilliantly by encouraging their own rosy view of themselves

--Texwiz

(To reply, click here.)

(3/22)

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