[Good Rich, Bad Rich] The Rich Are Tightfisted

The rich are often criticized more than ordinary people. That is because we expect a lot from them. In other words, we hope that the rich will loosen their purse strings and help those around them. But because real-life rich people often do not do that, we are quick to criticize them.

But such expectations of the rich may have been misguided from the start. A rich person is simply someone with a lot of money, not someone of especially noble character. It is no different from an athlete being simply someone who is good at sports, not someone of lofty character. A singer is merely someone who sings well, and an actor is merely someone who acts well. If we expect noble character from them, it is only natural to be disappointed again and again. We cannot expect them to do everything well like Superman.

Most rich people were able to accumulate a great deal of money because they earned it tenaciously, refrained from spending it, and saved it. While others were still asleep under warm blankets, they went out into the cold air and worked hard, and that is how they were able to make a great deal of money. When others went on overseas trips, they stayed behind; when others went skiing, they found ways to spend their leisure time at home. Even when relatives ran into financial difficulty, they shut their eyes to it and pretended not to notice. They were able to amass wealth because they endured people pointing fingers at them and acted like misers. You could say that the rich are people who have lived for the pleasure of watching the balance in their bankbooks grow.

Unlike in traditional fairy tales, if they had been generous to those around them, they might have been called kindhearted, but they would not have been able to accumulate great wealth. That is why it is difficult to expect such things from the rich in the first place. Of course, once rich people have accumulated a certain amount of money, they begin to enjoy personal satisfaction through hobbies and extend charity to those around them. But until they reach that point, the path to becoming rich is thoroughly about earning and saving money.

And it is precisely through that that the rich contribute to society. To make money, they have to satisfy customers. In the process of providing what customers want, the law of supply and demand comes into operation. And to save money, they have to reduce waste. In that process, capital is formed, and capital raises labor productivity, which in turn increases workers’ wages. Those are the things we should expect from the rich. Expecting the rich to be warmhearted is like expecting an athlete to sing well.

Original title: [좋은 부자, 나쁜 부자] 부자는 구두쇠다

Author: Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

Date: 2007-12-17

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=19&idx=10706