The believed entitlement of the rich.

[Cugel]

The first thing is to acknowledge one's own luck

If we all did that, we might even become “this happy breed”.

Doubtless some would say “but what about hard work; people get ahead by hard work!?”, to which I would say that it’s a matter of luck whether one emerges from childhood with the capacity for it, mental, physical, or both, the motivation for it, and into an environment where working hard actually gets you the basic necessities, let alone ahead in life.

People get ahead by effective work not hard work. Effective meaning a good return for the effort put in. I'm a lazy bugger, so chose a job I found easy and which paid quite well. They kept promoting me, and with each promotion came more money and easier work.
In Britain, the land of incompetence, being merely competent will lead to being well paid. If luck is involved, it's the luck to be here where a little ability goes a long way.

People "get ahead" by arranging a hierarchy of worthiness then getting everyone else to believe in it. Of course, the worthiness is a very subjective matter, in both its origin and its ongoing effects. Aristocrats are not exactly empathetic, are they?

Those who suck parasitically at the people who produce actual wealth (not just more money) are very adept at sucking whilst not producing anything to suck at themselves. Like you, they see this as a competence worthy of large rewards. Those failing to suck without making a contribution to the rich milk of humans existence are to be regarded as incompetent-at-sucking and therefore lowly creatures who should be paid little, despite making all the wealth.

Your own competences, whatever they are, might be less parasitic than those of hedge fund "managers" and the inheritors of vast untaxed estates but perhaps they are not really as special as you imply? We humans do like to feel special, though, I know.

It always surprises me how a human can conjure up some convoluted explanation of why they are better and more worthy than them others. It shouldn't surprise me by now, though, as the attitude is as common as muck.

[Nearholmer]

The point I was trying to make back up-thread is that it’s a normal, near-universal mode of thought.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” to quote J K Galbraith

So, if that’s one of the most common thought patterns of the human condition, it goes neatly with one of the most common, again near-universal, behavioural patterns of the human condition, which is is to seek personal control over as much/many resources as possible, not limited by any reasonably foreseeable need.

The “lower animal” part of each of us wants as much of everything and anything as they can grab and hold, and the “higher animal” part, consciousness and conscience, needs “permission from self” for all the grabbing and holding.

So far as my very limited understanding goes, some of the world’s more enlightened philosophies are all about transcending the “lower animal” lust for resources, and in so doing freeing the “higher animal” from all the mental turmoil of guilt and excuses.

[pete75]

Your own competences, whatever they are, might be less parasitic than those of hedge fund "managers" and the inheritors of vast untaxed estates but perhaps they are not really as special as you imply? We humans do like to feel special, though, I know.

The point I was making is that my competencies weren't anything special, merely adequate. I suppose managing people was a little parasitic in that their work contributed to my wage.
It might help if you could define what you regard as parasitic in employment.

[Cugel]

Your own competences, whatever they are, might be less parasitic than those of hedge fund "managers" and the inheritors of vast untaxed estates but perhaps they are not really as special as you imply? We humans do like to feel special, though, I know.

The point I was making is that my competencies weren't anything special, merely adequate. I suppose managing people was a little parasitic in that their work contributed to my wage.
It might help if you could define what you regard as parasitic in employment.

All of us humans need other humans and their doings to survive and prosper, especially in the modern world of specialisations. The relationships will work best for the greatest number when they tend to symbiosis rather than being parasitic. Which relationships can be regarded as parasitic, you ask.

It's not an easy question to answer with absolute details although its easy enough to spot the worst offenders - those of finance capitalism who employ property and other laws made for their benefit via various degrees of aristocratic social arrangements and political systems owned and directed by one sort of aristocratic class system or another. Such folk contribute nothing other than the monetary wealth they and their forebears have spend decades or centuries stealing from the efforts of others to make actual wealth, from goods and services to the vast range of social relationships that are mutually beneficial.

Finance capitalists make nothing of real value to anyone except themselves. They're no different from 9th century Danes and Norsemen viking about stealing from those who grow the grain and mine the silver. Finance capitalism often also "burns the village" from which they steal. And enslave their victims albeit in more subtle ways than did those vikings.

But there are other degrees of parasite about. Me and you, for example - if we are modern pensioners. Even if we paid all our lives into a scheme, with a portion of our hard-earned income, in practice our pension will come from the machinations of finance capitalism. It's a rare pensioner who saves the dosh under the mattress then ekes it out over their retirement.

In my experience, many "managers" scattered up and down the various hierarchies of business and government bureaucracies can also be parasites. Many make a very useful or even essential contribution .... but many others are only good at greasy-pole climbing and of no actual use in the organisation at all. In fact, they can be detrimental to its efforts in producing wealth of various kinds. I'm sure you've come across these sorts of "managers" if you've worked in large organisations. They suck out their salaries but do nothing to earn them.

****************
The problem is our human inclination to establish hierarchies of worth. It isn't clear whether this is a fundamental human genetic trait or much more a cultural exudation of organised large societies that have arisen since we moved from hunter-gatherer animal status to meme-infested tribe and nation status. But whatever the cause, class systems have arisen that generally privilege the greedy and exploitative over those who actually produce the stuff worth exploiting. Eventually, they also privilege the incompetent, who can just buy their position and status with which to suck-out but never put-in.

Pinkish Cugel

[pwa]

I'd reserve the word "parasite" for the hyper-rich at the very top, who have everyone else scurrying around to make their wealth. Pete's role is/was as a person offering a skilled service that others chose to pay him for. He has just played the hand that was dealt to him, which is all that most people can do. We live in the world we are born into.

And who exactly are "the rich" these days? How wealthy do you have to be to qualify? Given the astronomical prices of fairly ordinary homes in some places now, I'd say a net worth of well over £2m might just about get someone on the bottom rung of being rich. Maybe £5m is more like it.

[Cugel]

I'd reserve the word "parasite" for the hyper-rich at the very top, who have everyone else scurrying around to make their wealth. Pete's role is/was as a person offering a skilled service that others chose to pay him for. He has just played the hand that was dealt to him, which is all that most people can do. We live in the world we are born into.

And who exactly are "the rich" these days? How wealthy do you have to be to qualify? Given the astronomical prices of fairly ordinary homes in some places now, I'd say a net worth of well over £2m might just about get someone on the bottom rung of being rich. Maybe £5m is more like it.

I do have concerns about the truly rich (defined as those with multiples of the amount they need to survive and prosper) because rich people are able to buy not just goods and daily life services but also the services of politicians and others of large influence, who they corrupt and steer away from public good to rich-people's good.

But what we're discussing here are those who take out of a society but give nothing back; and in doing so impoverish those they take from. I don't object to people doing not much productive and having enough to live. Its the exploitation of the many by the few to the point where the many (and society as a whole) are badly damaged and degraded in a manner analogous to the way a tape worm will degrade and damage its host.

Many have no problem identifying benefit claimants as somehow exploitative takers, despite the fact that the vast majority of benefit claimants would rather have other means to live and actually take very little per person. Yet those same folk moaning on about benefit claimants fail to see just how pernicious are the the various financial capitalistic schemes for using a ton of money they already have to get another few tons they don't need by extracting value from those who are producing it until those producers are bled dry.

And many of these schemes concentrate their efforts at an individual level. Rentiers take a huge portion of a working person's income. Bad employers pay slave wages to those they exploit to generate their own vast wealth. Shareholders employ stockbroker agents to do such dirty work of income extraction by proxy.

The greedy exploiters think nothing of impoverishing huge numbers of others with their get-richer schemes, until we live in a society with large numbers of the homeless, those living in damp and dangerous hovels, food banks and millions in a state of true poverty (not just a bit less than others but not enough to stay healthy or even alive). It isn't a matter of the less well off envying those with more. It's a matter of survival.

[briansnail]

quote]The “lower animal” part of each of us wants as much of everything and anything as they can grab and hold, and the “higher animal” part, consciousness and conscience, needs “permission from self” for all the grabbing and holding.[/quote]

Of course we are programmed to pass on our genes and money.Putin has trillions.His dynasty is safe.I wonder if he would give me a loan if I knocked on his door.Probably not.Proving its not only wicked capitalists who are unwilling to share.You could have a statutory state tax and a voluntary tax to help families in need with more than two kids.The latter would appeal to the higher self and keep everyone happy.
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I ride Brompton,Hetchins 531

[Cugel]

Puggle-post

[briansnail]

is no longer the official ideology of what was the Soviet Republic (another misnomer).

Totally agree.Someone on this site recommended "Putin's people" by Catherine Belton. All cycling forum readers who read it will be in no doubt.Some of my fellow club riders pointed out the difference between State capitalism and Communism can be fluid.
Are Communist countries Communist now? China has changed so much.Some of the the alleged communists are more Capitalist than the Capitalists.Can be confusing.I am of to ride my bike.

[axel_knutt]

[

on a global scale just about everyone reading this will be in the stupendously lucky category

Global Wealth Distribution.png

Thank you. It was the point I was making that Cugel seems to have totally missed.
I doubt anyone reading this is in that half on the World's population that owns less than 2% of the wealth. If anyone wants to talk about redistribution, it's this inequality that's the pressing issue. That isn't to say helping your neighbour isn't a good thing, but those who think that leaves them with no more than their fair share are usually delusional.
Just a reminder before anyone tears me down, I've already said "I don't know the answers, the story in my head is that I can't do anything about it, but in honesty I haven't spent much effort trying."

As long as this wealth difference remains, the rich countries will continue to import labour and export jobs, and the more successful we are at blocking the labour the more jobs we'll lose. The problem is that if the difference is addressed by 'levelling up', the environment won't tolerate it.

As increasing numbers of people acquire levels of wealth far beyond their needs, the definition of wealth and value become distorted, and the methods of disposing of the surplus wealth become increasingly fatuous. People value the trivial, and take the important stuff for granted to the point that they no longer notice it (until it comes at a premium, such as during the pandemic). I recall a study at the time of the credit crunch: people were asked "If you really had to, could you cut down on what you spend?". The rich said no, and the poor said yes.

Psychologist Paul Piff on wealth.
Equality Trust on wealth inequality.

[Nearholmer]

I tend towards a fairly old-fashioned economic view of it all, pre-Marx in origin in case anyone mistakes it for Marxism, which says that everything begins with natural resources, to which are added human physical effort and ingenuity in order to create things which are “useful”.

Now, what constitutes “useful” is open to much debate, but if we think of the hierarchy of needs, that gives some focus for that.

Most of us are more or less non-parasitic, in that our physical and/of mental efforts are part of a chain that takes natural resources and turns them progressively into useful things. For a farmer that’s pretty easy to spot, ditto anyone whose efforts make the farmer more productive. It gets harder to spot as things move further up the hierarchy of need, but I’d argue that a fancy hairdresser (well beyond a basic “clippers all over” barber), for instance, still fits in, because they take a natural resource (hair!) and by their labour and skill turn it into something that delivers a bit of self-actualisation. Even the much hated class of middle managers are there to organise the creation/delivery/exchange of useful stuff - I know, because I was one for some of my working life and it can take one heck of a lot of ingenuity to get desired outcomes in a complex environment!

Laid on top of that web of activity to raise the usefulness of natural resources is the human predisposition to attempt to individually control as much resource (including the people who deploy physical and mental effort) as possible, the monetary token system of exchange, and various forms of gambling to accumulate money in order to control resources.

Parasitism isn’t, to my why of thinking, an all or nothing thing, it’s about the degree to which a person is able to coral natural resources beyond their fair share, the products of other people’s mental and physical labour, and money (which is a proxy for the foregoing), and “grow fat on them”.

I guess that by that definition, those of us in “the developed world” are to varying degrees all parasitic on those in “the undeveloped world”, pensioners are parasites on the working (by common consent), The King is a big flea on all of our backs (again by common consent), while individual large capitalists, literal robber barons, and kleptocratic rulers etc are all intestinal worms.

Maybe we should invent a scale of parasitism, and score each and every person against it, from zero ticks, to a hundred ticks.

[reohn2]

The point I was trying to make back up-thread is that it’s a normal, near-universal mode of thought.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” to quote J K Galbraith

So, if that’s one of the most common thought patterns of the human condition, it goes neatly with one of the most common, again near-universal, behavioural patterns of the human condition, which is is to seek personal control over as much/many resources as possible, not limited by any reasonably foreseeable need.

The “lower animal” part of each of us wants as much of everything and anything as they can grab and hold, and the “higher animal” part, consciousness and conscience, needs “permission from self” for all the grabbing and holding.

So far as my very limited understanding goes, some of the world’s more enlightened philosophies are all about transcending the “lower animal” lust for resources, and in so doing freeing the “higher animal” from all the mental turmoil of guilt and excuses.

Well said Sir!

[Cugel]

quote]The “lower animal” part of each of us wants as much of everything and anything as they can grab and hold, and the “higher animal” part, consciousness and conscience, needs “permission from self” for all the grabbing and holding.

Of course we are programmed to pass on our genes and money.Putin has trillions.His dynasty is safe.I wonder if he would give me a loan if I knocked on his door.Probably not.Proving its not only wicked capitalists who are unwilling to share.You could have a statutory state tax and a voluntary tax to help families in need with more than two kids.The latter would appeal to the higher self and keep everyone happy.
*********************************************************
I ride Brompton,Hetchins 531

[/quote]

Pukin is but another form of capitalist (the far-kleptocrat variety). Perhaps you haven't heard but communism in Russia has a) never actually existed and b) is no longer the official ideology of what was the Soviet Republic (another misnomer).

[briansnail]

I doubt anyone reading this is in that half on the World's population that owns less than 2% of the wealth.

Next week Sir Kier will have to talk down MP's (including Labour) that want an extension of benefits to the 2 children only policy.Sir Kier argued Fiscal constraints simply do not allow.Also some people are forgoing any children.They would be paying for other people who had more than two.You could have a voluntary state tax in addition for those inclined to help.As this is unlikely how do people feel re 2 children limit? Do we pay more tax?

[UpWrong]

The sense of entitlement is found in both the rich and the poor. In the poor it is labelled as dependency culture rather than entitlement. I think the rich (or well educated?) are sometimes perceived as having a sense of entitlement because of their confidence and ability to articulate their wants or expectations. The greatest poverty of the working class is their poverty of ambition ...