         When you don't need to work for survival, purpose is all there is. And when you're twenty-one and you don't have the necessity to get out there, it's an enormous thing to struggle with at a young age. What do I need to do? I don't need to do anything! I feel like the money I inherited is like a muting forcelike right after a snowstorm, when everything is white and quiet and sort of neutralized. I feel like I've been subdued. Nothing stands out more than anything else.
- A young inheritor interviewed by The Inheritance Project |
 |
 |
|
I N T R O D U C T I O N p a g e 8
Wealthism
"Wealthism" describes a certain set of attitudes directed at the wealthy by the nonwealthy. While wealthism is not the only obstacle to satisfying relationships between heirs and those with less money, it is certainly the biggest. This term was coined by Joanie Bronfman in her dissertation The Experience of Inherited Wealth: A Social-Psychological Perspective. She writes: "Wealthism includes those actions or attitudes that dehumanize or objectify wealthy people, simply because they are wealthy. The main attitudes of wealthism are envy, awe and resentment. . . . Wealthism differs from the other 'isms' in that racism and sexism are perpetrated by those who have power, whereas wealthism is directed at those who have power."
Like racism and sexism, wealthism stereotypes those it targets—in this case, the rich. And like all prejudices, wealthism diminishes and impoverishes all those it touches. For sheltered young heirs who have grown up almost exclusively with their own kind, the first experience of wealthism can be an enormous shock. Marilyn Melkert remembers her initiation: "I grew up in Grosse Pointe, where everyone was pretty wealthy, and I never really thought about it. But when I went off to the University of Michigan, I found out for the first time that people hate the rich. I'd be sitting around with some of my dorm mates, and they'd be talking about 'that rich bitch' and 'those horrible rich people.' And I would be real quiet. It was like being in the closet because you're gay and hearing people bash gays. You don't dare to say a word."
|
Table of Contents | Other Trio Press Publications
|
|
|
|