Which class in society -- upper, middle, lower, or under -- does the following describe: an almost debilitating dependence on government hand-outs; an inability to defer gratification; a high incidence of family break-up; rampant addiction; high rates of crime; generation after generation locked into this cycle of disintegration and waste? All of you who answered, "Ah yes, he's describing the culture of poverty" have to stay after school. I'm talking instead about the "culture of richness," one of the most unheralded dangers we face today.
Oh, you didn't know that? A great deal of effort has been expended to keep the knowledge away from the public, but the facts are there for those willing to dig a little. Take, for instance, the inability to defer gratification. The poor are often chastised for being profligate, for buying televisions instead of suffering as they ought to for the sin of not having enough money. But the rich far outdo the poor in this, preferring quarterly profits to long-term development, or speculating with amounts of money that would fund small countries for a decade. Or take family break-up. Can anything the poor offer in terms of family problems rival the 15-round bouts of the Gettys or the von Bulows or the Pulitzers (which have their witless counterparts in such drain-traps as Dynasty and The Colbys)? For promiscuity, a Kennedy or a Liz Taylor will do just fine. And in terms of gluttony the spectacle of the poor racing to get cheese and bologna may be unsettling, but not quite as much as $4,000 dinners or macadamia mousse in Ming dynasty bowls.
The time has come to face this problem squarely because it is a burden the rest of us can no longer afford. The problem is growing. Fortune magazine recently reported that the number of billionaires doubled in one year. The richest 2% of American families now controls half of all personal wealth. And even as I speak the culture is being passed on from generation to generation through trust funds and annuities. The rich will have to be weaned off the government's welfare system, such as tax breaks, subsidies, and military contracts. They will have to attend training and rehabilitation programs like "The 'Job': A Concept Whose Time Has Come." They will have to undergo extensive treatment for their addiction to waste and desire. But as we've been told again and again, problems cannot be solved simply by throwing money at them. So what we'll need to do is take their money. We'll use it to lift those in poverty out of poverty and, at the same time, give the former rich back their souls as they learn to adjust to the bracing life of paycheck-to- paycheck.
Who will be the first to step forward and take the pledge?
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English Revisited