Why Do We Hate Success?
Posted on | June 30, 2006 |
We hate big business. We hate the wealthy. We hate overachievers. Why? It doesn’t make any sense to me. The amount of contempt I’ve seen recently towards those who are successful is astonishing. Is it part of our society that wishes to bring everyone back to the average? More importantly, could this increasing contempt sabotage our economy? I think quite possibly (and might have already damaged it).
Let’s start with the wealthy. We can include big business in this examination as well since it generates a fair bit of our nation’s wealth and wealthy. Granted there are some in the upper income strata who reside there merely because of family wealth, but a majority of our nation’s most wealthy are first generation success stories. As the book The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy notes, fewer than 20 percent of America’s millionaires inherited 10 percent or more of their wealth, nearly half never received any college tuition from their parents or other relatives, and more than half never received as much as $1 in inheritance.
But, they’re still hated. Chad Lapa agrees,
For some unknown reason we are taught either as kids, or though the left wing media, that people wealthy and successful are born with some special gene that products their success. Due to this unfair power they possess over us, they should be punished and forced to pay crazy high tax rates so their wealth can be re-distributed to the “less fortunate”. [sic]
While I wouldn’t say that people are taught by “the left wing media,” I do agree that “progressive” taxes are the average person’s way of redistributing wealth and, in effect, “punishing” the wealthy. However, the negative repercussions of redistributing wealth are staggering. Frankly, wealth creation is not a zero sum game. Just because one person has it, doesn’t mean another won’t or that it was hostilely taken from another party.
Similarly, big business is often decried as evil. I don’t deny that there is corruption in some companies (see: short term vs. long term). However, they also contribute a majority of our nations productivity gains (read: more wealth) and generate much of our nation’s wealth. By nature, they are more efficient (generally speaking and when they aren’t regulated into inefficiency) and employ a large percentage of the US workforce. Don’t read this to mean I don’t like small/medium businesses or that I believe bigger is better in the business world. My point is that large corporations aren’t inherently evil. Plus, they produce people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who then donate nearly $100 billion back to the world.
But, let’s think smaller. How many smart kids (”overachievers”) are teased and bullied everyday in school? Why do we have terms like nerd, geek, and dweeb? In my experience, people have been bold enough to tell me to my face that they hope I fail. Or, in the web development world, what about the successful 37signals (software company)? Many people laud them, but with each new, successful offering more and more contempt is directed towards them (for more on this: read their blog about any given day).
So, everyone, when did we start to hate success? Is it human nature?
Comments
17 Responses to “Why Do We Hate Success?”
Leave a Reply
July 1st, 2006 @ 6:40 am
Great article Nicole - I agree with you all the way!
July 1st, 2006 @ 8:42 pm
I personally do not loathe successful or wealthy people because they are successful or wealthy. I do not loathe the Bill Gates’s and Warren Buffet’s of this world, who have contributed in a great amount to making the world better and helping the less fortunate. I do however loathe the Kenneth Lay’s and Dennis Kozlowski’s, these egotistical money-grubbing types who spend thousands of dollars on toilet seats and pillow chocolates, all at the expense of their companies and stockholders. The people who make millions of dollars each year, yet cheat their way to get just a few more. I also realize that it is not fair to have taxes targeting the wealthy, but I personally believe it is more viable. I base it on simple values, in that a person of extravagant means can more easily afford a higher tax which will also produce a greater amount of money to be utilized than a person of lesser means. I also get very irked when I see people like Oprah, these supposed “great humanitarian” types, wearing a diamond necklace worth 5 million dollars or some outrageous sum, and getting nothing but recognition for it. It seems that all of these rappers with their pimp cups, kitschy jewelry, and platinum and diamond “grills” who are so proud to have made it big are completely numb to the term “blood diamonds,” and just seem to be shitting on many of their ancestry. It is obviously a much greater swath of people than just rappers and Oprah, but the point is much the same. I also loathe seeing celebrities pitching for their charities. I know this is at the expense of many good charities, but honestly, I just worked my ass off for a year in Iraq. I might have had a total of 12-15 days off in that whole year (not including mid-tour leave), and most days I worked anywhere from 11 to 15 hours regularly, and sometimes as much as 24 hours or more straight, and with all of my bonuses, my tax free pay, and everything else added up, I probably just squeaked past clearing 40 grand. I know many a single soldier of lesser ranks who did nearly as many hours and nearly as much work and made just over 20 grand for their year. Many of these celebrities make 20 million plus per picture, and they’re pitching to me? I understand many of these are selfish reasons, and some could be considered narrow-minded, but they are my opinions, and you can mark my words, if I were to ever make a ridiculous amount of money, say 4 million plus each year, I would not be trying to find tax loopholes, and a great portion of it would be given to charities…anonymously. Lastly, it seems people of wealth are looked up to, emulated, and respected, and many of them (Paris Hilton) deserve none of this. It has always seemed ironic that people like Oprah get all this praise for giving the members of her audience a car, yet people like Norman Borlaug are virtually unknown among the american masses.
July 3rd, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3247
July 5th, 2006 @ 7:52 am
Jeff, I really do think a lot of corporate corruption (which creates the likes of Jeffrey Skilling and WorldCom execs) goes back to short term vs. long term vision (my thoughts linked above) on the part of both executives and stockholders. However, I dare say I’m not smart enough to tell you how to go about fixing this. Small scale, sure, but to turn around thinking of a majority of the corporate world is an entirely different thing.
JC, great article.
July 6th, 2006 @ 7:31 pm
While I agree to an extent that it can go back to a short-term vs. long-term vision much as your linked opinion states (and you would know better than I, having at least some formal education in the matter), I believe that a portion of this corporate corruption is due simply to greed and a lack of true morals. It seems that many would put their personal welfare above the greater good of a company and it’s stockholders(much as you stated, the “long-term” viability). It seems lacking of morals, though I personally have “procured” many an office supply from the coffers of the US Army, so maybe they believe it is there for the taking in much the same way?
July 7th, 2006 @ 7:18 am
Yes, I agree that at some point, after taking out all other causes, a small portion of corporate corruption is due to greed and other shortcomings. But is that not true of all corruption (across all echelons of wealth)? And why hold contempt towards the entire corporate world when but a small faction is truly corrupt?
July 7th, 2006 @ 11:18 am
As usual my dear…well said.
July 12th, 2006 @ 7:33 am
at the end of the day, it is salutary thaty certain types of success are not held in high esteem
for one, success is not interesting (”the negative is more importunate” as eliot said - or “happiness writes white on the page” as tolstoy said.. neither are ‘losers’)
two, it is important to keep a sense of perspective.
success is very very very difficult to define i would say
a successful life is one which harms very little/very few
what do you think?
July 20th, 2006 @ 7:16 am
Tom, there are, of course, many different kinds of success. For this piece, I was referring to success in a more traditional sense, but, as you say, success can be defined in many different ways. And, the business world in its short-sightedness tends to only care about the traditional meaning.
September 19th, 2006 @ 12:16 pm
Because the human race is very angry at the success of our brothers. I mean, if you were at a party and talking how well everything was going for you and how much money you made and I am barely struggling to get my citizenship in Canada, I’d probably be seething mad. But that’s my opinion.
October 10th, 2006 @ 2:28 pm
Hi Nickel,
People, as a rule, don’t hate success. They hate greed. If you take a poll, I’d imagine that you’ll find that most people have a great deal of respect and admiration for Gates, Beatty, and Allen and many other hugely ’successful’ people.
Think of it this way. You like pie, I like pie. Lets imagine that there is an unlimited supply of pie, and everyone wants some. Now, I’m a smart guy, and I figure out a more efficient way of gathering pie than you do (even tho’ technically I already have more pie than I need). I put this pie aquisition tool (PAT) into operation and shortly thereafter, I’ve got even more pie. Pretty cool, huh?
The problem is that I already had more pie than I really needed, so the excess pie kinda gets wasted. But, it’s my pie, right? I have every right to do whatever I want with it. You might even think “Wow! Good job Cory! I’m really happy for you!” Even while you kinda wonder what I’m doing with all that pie.
Some people, on the other hand, see my display of excess as vulgar and rude. I’m literally sitting on a mountain of pie - I’m totally glutted on it and to be honest, I’m kinda sick of pie and don’t really even like it anymore. But, having so much pie means I’m SUCCESSFUL, and if I can get even more pie then it follows that I’ll be even more SUCCESSFUL.
So I patent the PAT and then sell it to other people who want more pie than they need. I charge these people 1 pie for every 10 pies they get using the PAT. That’s a tiny profit margin (10%) but I’ve already got more pie than I can use, and now I’ve got an additional pie coming in from every person I sell the PAT to.
But to what end? I’m already sick of pie, I have a thousand, or even a million times the amount of pie I actually need. But the system is in place, and I can receive even MORE pie without lifting another finger thanks to my PAT marketing.
Eventually, people start coming to me and asking for pie.. The right thing to do is to give away the excess pie. But, it’s my pie and as we’ve already discussed pie == SUCCESS. Why should I help these other people be successful when it doesn’t help me in any way? Nobody helped me, after all. I got all this pie on my own. Let them figure out their own PATs. By not giving them free pie, I’m encouraging them to be SUCCESSFUL like me.
This attitude only makes the “unSUCCESSFUL” people (ie people who have their normal amount of pie) resent me. You see, they may have come up with their own PATs, but since they already had enough pie to start with, they decided not to use the PATs - because it’s the right thing to do. Greed, “an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs,”is a sin, after all. And those people who made a moral choice to not be greedy, are called unSUCCESSFUL. Wouldn’t that make you angry?
The idea, of course, isn’t that people hate me because I’m SUCCESSFUL. They hate that I am sitting on this enormous pile of pie (money) - which amounts to a huge monument to my own greed. If I give the money away (like Gates, Allen & Buffet and many, many other do) then I get all the applause in the world.
The perception of the unSUCCESSFUL however, is that most of the rich don’t share their wealth. Unless, of course, they are encouraged to do so as a means of protecting that which they are supposedly giving away.
It’s nauseating.
-C
October 10th, 2006 @ 11:37 pm
I think CORY! summed it up brilliantly.
People don’t hate success. Though people dislike many of the byproducts that result from people who abuse the wealth and influence that success brings.
Just look at the goodwill the general community have towards people such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who have decided to use their success in philanthropic efforts. Even look at the positive response to Richard Branson’s recent commitment to invest in environmentally friendly renewable energy research and development.
Everyday people appreciate what successful people have achieved when their success is not at the result of hurting the overall community.
October 13th, 2006 @ 1:18 pm
[...] Over time, I began thinking, “Maybe I am crazy and they’re right. Big business is evil. CEO’s and professional athletes only look out for themselves. They don’t deserve that money.” But then Nicole Swan posed a question on her blog (Why Do We Hate Success?), and I realized I wasn’t alone. Maybe the problem is not “those people” and their astonishing accomplishments as much as it’s our response to their success. So I’m now back to my original thought: [...]
January 17th, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
Everyone sems to always want to have everyone the same as them, if this means not successful then that is what they want. No one wants to see someone break from the herd and be successful because then it shows them that hey, if I put some effort into it I could be successful. They want it to come to them. The lottery syndrome I call. They don’t want to work and then magically you get rich.
November 15th, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
The hatred is from success at the expense of people. This is an old class war and globalization is the wealthy elite way to wage it.
Enjoy the hatred. It will only grow because of political and economic hatred projected from the wealthy down the pipe at the expense of labor.
Even worse, their actions through politics undermine liberty for all. Instead we worship the bully. The thugs at Enron who pushed the weak around until finally an entire region went in the dark because of their manipulations.
Why wouldn’t I hate a bully and a thug? And that is exactly what many wealthy people look like.
Do you respect South American drug lords? Why not? They earned their wealthy by free market trade didn’t they.
The only wealthy I respect are the ones who earned it by their own labor alone. Through art and personal works, not through the rigged Wall Street gambling debt machine.
I prefer a society that respects liberty and justice instead of wealth. Enjoy your new religion of profit. Beware the Wall Street dogma, it is difficult to leave that church after you join it.
March 10th, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
I sell used cars & Im good at it, Im also very young 19, people hate the fact that I work at my dads dealership, drive a differnt cars every few days and spend my money on whatever I want, people also dont like that i choose a sleezy job instead of going to college. But the fact is that I help the economy, let me explain… I recirculate all the money I get on goods & services which creates & maintains jobs, I dont hoard it under my matresse to never be spent, I help keep the car market competitive our dealership has very low overhead & my prices are the lowest in a 100 km or more raduis, I supply people with cars that cant afford a new one for between 2000-5000, I get about 2 complaints a year and there always resolved, believe it or not lol. Also being succesful isnt easy and i dont claim to be a millionaire but I consider my self succesful It takes hard work, skill, long hours, stress, etc. Everyone thinks running a car dealership is easy, far from it 2 out 3 used car dealerships in ontario go bankrupt in the first year or 2. I can see the hate in peoples eyes when they see me selling cars & doing my thing, not all people but a percentage of them because I dont follow the norm and get a job in a factory or go to college and work for a corperation. Id like to say is when I get a rude customer who disapproves of what i do or is jealous I just laugh it off, its harder when its friends or family.
Everyone sems to always want to have everyone the same as them, if this means not successful then that is what they want. No one wants to see someone break from the herd and be successful because then it shows them that hey, if I put some effort into it I could be successful. They want it to come to them. The lottery syndrome I call. They don’t want to work and then magically you get rich.
“very true words”
August 17th, 2008 @ 7:44 am
Oh, Thanks! Really interesting. Greets.