In the interest of full disclosure (in case you hadn’t noticed), I know as much about economics as I know about solid state physics, open heart surgery, how to construct the Arthur Ravenel Bridge and many other matters as well.
So when the opportunity presents itself for me to offer my two cents’ worth on the subject–economics–I forge ahead (as I’m doing in this piece). Since, typically, when this subject is being discussed, I at least have enough sense to keep my mouth shut and listen to those who would seem to know what they’re talking about.
I also can’t imagine I’ve ever used the word “prescient,” or “prescience.” But I’ve heard it used, so I once looked up the definition, which is: “foreknowledge; the ability to see things ahead, before they happen.”
Which reminds me of an important book I read over thirty years ago, John Raines’ Illusions of Success: The Middle Class, Up Against the Wall, Going Nowhere (Judson Press, 1975). It’s now available, I’ve noticed, online–used copies for as little as $2.
Professor Raines is an ethicist who has, for many years, taught in the Religion Department at Temple University.
Reflecting back upon my reading of the book, it strikes me as having been “prescient,” considering the cataclysmic socio-economic chasm that so tragically exists today, in our society, between the “haves” and the “have nots.” Or, perhaps more accurately, the “have mores,” even the “have too muches,” and the “have lesses”; not to mention, the “have nothings.” Indeed, the statistic one of my buddies quoted at lunch yesterday is that the typical “corporate CEO these days is compensated some 400% more than the average person in the workforce.”
So, if you’re interested, here’s Raines’ thesis, circa 1975.
There are, he claims–which he exhaustively supports with the data of substantive research–two classes of people in America. One, he calls “wealth owners”; the other, “wealth earners.” The former class being, of course, notably smaller than the latter, as well as often the benefactors of inherited wealth.
“Wealth earners,” he says, “work for their money.” Whereas, in the case of “wealth owners,” their money “works for them.”
And he continues, asserting that there is no way a “wealth earner” can compete with a “wealth owner” in our nation’s economic climate. This, because of tax laws which favor the “wealth owner” over the “wealth earner.”
Since I know even less about tax law than the the subject of economics in general, I won’t even try to explain what Professor Raines means by tax laws that favor “wealth owners” over “wealth earners.” Except I’m thinking of one example that may be illustrative. It comes from my own rather modest economic status. As a minister, I am considered “self-employed.” Which means that I have to pay a higher rate of income tax. Except I’m also afforded an assortment of deductions related to various expenses I may incur as a “self-employed” person: the value of purchasing, maintaining and insuring (or even renting) a home (exclusive to clergy), as well as the cost of owning (or leasing), maintaining and insuring an automobile (in my case, the least expensive Chevy pickup truck) used exclusively in the duties of my professional life, office supplies and equipment, a telephone designated specifically for professional use, professional entertainment and gifts, educational and professional development expenses, advertising, owning or renting office space, malpractice insurance, licenses and professional credential dues, the purchase of professional books and periodicals, so necessary for any credible minister (my accountant even has my library set up on a depreciation schedule which affords a tax benefit).
Nonetheless, I am still obviously not a “wealth owner.” I, rather, primarily “work for my money,” rather than it “working for me.” I am, indeed, the epitome of the Calvinist ethic regarding the value, meaning and purpose of work. And fortunately, such work, for me at least, is something I, quite joyfully and thankfully, “live to do,” rather than “do to live.” It’s what is considered, in Christian ethics at least, a “vocation”; if you will, “a calling.”
On the other hand, I’ve actually known at least one man who was a rather exclusive “wealth owner.” He lived off “inherited wealth”; his money “worked for him.” In fact, he didn’t work, literally–he played. One day he went “shooting,” another day he went “biking”; on other days he either went “fishing” or “hunting” or “golfing” or “gardening,” except when he wasn’t “gambling, drinking or chasing women.”
But even if the stereotypical corporate CEO my buddy was referring to at lunch yesterday–even if he might be considered a “wealth earner,” in that he ostensibly “works for his money”–if, after all, he earns 400% more than the average person in the workforce, he obviously has considerably more money available to “work for him,” thus making him something of “wealth owner” compared to someone earning notably less.
As for the sub-title of John Raines’ book, The Middle Class, Up Against the Wall, Going Nowhere–given his claim that “wealth earners” are at such a dis-advantage, tax-wise, compared to “wealth owners”–he further asserts than even if it might seem that we middle-class “wealth earners” are, relative to our lifestyle, “doing better” financially: this is, indeed, what he terms our Illusions of Success. Because, in fact, he says, we’re not “getting ahead”; instead, he declares–due to inflation and the cost of living–we are “falling even further behind” on the economic power curve.
As we often hear it said, to deny, or even resent anyone being as materially wealthy as they may be or become–that’s about as un-American as you can get! Except for those of us who claim to ascribe to Christian ethics, such excessive wealth presents a problem, as in the difference between our “wants” and our “needs,” when “enough never is.” Since in Christian ethics, at least, material wealth is always seen as inversely proportionate to one’s moral and spiritual wealth and health.
