The season just past contrasts the generosity of present-giving and charity with greed for acquisitions and over-consumption: laudable on the one hand, innocent enough on the other, surely? Naughty but nice; two sides of the same coin, both all right for those with the means.
For a tiny minority, the 1%, excess is at a whole other level, unimaginable to most, insatiable. This tiny minority has accumulated wealth which collectively approaches that of the rest of the population combined, countable in £billions. Such wealth does not come from wages or merit but derives from inheritance, often untaxed, from luck or from investment. They are greatly outnumbered by those without assets.
What sort of civilisation allows so much to be in so few hands and so little in others? What drives those who have been fortunate to seek ever more, when they cannot possibly use, spend or enjoy more than a tiny proportion of what they have? It is important that we know something about these questions, for the influence of the 1% affects us all, not least when among its number we may count our own Head of State. If ever there was an exemplar of greedocracy it surely has to be someone who inherits multiple palaces, an Aladdin’s cave of priceless art, and lives in a style of ostentatious self-indulgence but keeps coming back for more from people over whom he has sway.
“Sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization”
Wealth brings power and influence, which are themselves like drugs, habits requiring feeding but to what end? Does accumulation become nothing more than a game or hobby when nothing else presents a challenge? Is it about creating a legacy for descendants, deserving or not, so that they start life with the same unmerited advantages? Some believe in a “1% Conspiracy” whereby these accumulators collude to rule this world and, potentially, other planets.
“From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.” (Friedrich Engels).
Such self-centred obsessives have no concern for the interests of others, especially their competitors for the podiums of life but they apparently understand each other enough to defend their shared privilege.
Psychologists speculate that such driven greed may be rooted in some unresolved trauma, in narcissistic personality or in childhood envy. Some may quite simply have inherited their fortune and with it, perhaps supported by privileges in education, attitudes like entitlement and disdain for others. Greed may demonstrably be accompanied by considerable drive and motivation, leading many greedy people to pursue their ambitions ruthlessly and successfully. They can never have enough. This may then affect their political attitudes. The economic cake must always be cut in their favour. Budgets devoted to bettering the lives of the 99% must be cut, so that the rich need pay less tax.
Greed becomes political
Their wealth and power render the 1% almost immune to the constraints on behaviour or choices which affect the rest of society. They could and should pay taxes in keeping with the amounts they take from resources available for the common good, but they are able to employ means to protect themselves against such decency. They make their own and eschew others’ norms because they can, especially when it comes to accrual of money. This renders them the least suitable candidates for law-making and yet many deem this their right. To quote Sussex’s own Thomas Paine: “A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
Peers, media proprietors, employers, financiers all hold levers of power derived from wealth which they use to further enhance their own interests over those of the vast majority of citizens. Money buys a welcome to political leaders regardless of merit. Control of assets is itself a lever over political decisions. Just look at how bankers responded to the Kwarteng budget, intended to line their pockets but so misguided that they applied pressure through the markets they control.
So what can society or government do to counter such greed? Plutocrats answer to nobody and no governments, able to apply their wealth to any sort of egregious activities, regardless of their impact on others. Perhaps all we can hope for is that the cautionary tales of Ebeneezer Scrooge, King Midas or Mr Creosote may yet apply in reality to those for whom every day is like Christmas but whose greed is insatiable. One day may they go too far for their own good. Think Marie Antoinette of France, Czar Nicholas 2 of Russia, Bashar al Assad of Syria.
But do not hold your breath. Limpets cling to their rocks.
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