Why do the rich hate the poor?

The rich already have everything. Why are they always so determined to make the poor miserable to the point of death? Is it some kind of mental illness, or what?

I think that many of them just don't give a damn.

I've met people with serious inherited money. They are most concerned that their own surroundings remain pleasant. They hire people to think for them. They are mostly affable and utterly clueless.

The few who do wonder about the poor realize how outnumbered they are and they add fear to the mix. Those are the ones who try to buy government so the poor can be oppressed beyond the ability to rise up.

They think they have what they have because somebody somewhere back in their ancestry really worked hard to accumulate all that wealth. It's their duty to hang on to it. They believe that people are poor because they made bad choices, were too stupid to figure out the markets and join the right country clubs. Of course those people who make up the working class should be grateful that they have jobs cleaning up after them.

They need them to exploit. Though once they've squeezed all the blood from the stone, it's kick-'em-to-the-curb time... so maybe you're right after all.

More than the poor, they hate the middle class, because they have a chance of joining them someday at THEIR country clubs and THEIR parties.

The middle class, of course, hate the poor the most, and live in constant fear they might join them someday.

Remember, in Capitalism we are all reduced to quantifyable objects, and objectification can carry with it, hate and loathing.

they eat them.

Don't get in between the rich and anything of value.

If they feel there are limited resources, they need to do whatever they can to take it away from others. Very little empathy going on, because superficial and materialistic values are more important to them than human values.

The rich are one revolution away from being all hanged, THAT is what the rich are afraid of. They desire to prevent the people from empowering themselves and taking thier rightful vengence on thier exploiters.

n/t

Power and riches are fleeting and civilizations always seem to balance themselves out. You can only build your towers so high before they come crumbling down, as they say.

And that is why they fear. :evilgrin:

You let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up! Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one, and if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life! It's not about food, it's about keeping those ants in line.

Don't even mistake that for a second.

Many affluent people invest an inordinate amount of their waking hours doing their best to become MORE affluent. Indeed, if anything seems to predominate among the affluent it's the notion that "more is better." While covetousness is a common human failing, it seems even more pronounced as the person becomes more affluent.

"They hate us for our freedoms" seems almost emblematic of the perceived gulf between the rich and the poor, where 'freedoms' are perceived to be the more expansive and affluent lifestyles enjoyed by the wealthy. The wealthy can afford the 'freedom' of a 2-week vacation in a tropical locale each year - or more often. The poor can only 'vacation' with street drugs, taking meth or crack and, for just a while, being 'freed' of the concerns of day-to-day survival.

The 'dream' of most people is the ability to rely upon some life's circumstance where their daily labors are compensated and they're treated equitably - where they can afford housing, food, clothing, health care, education, and have a little bit left over. That 'dream' is important enough that millions and millions were willing to indenture themselves to corporations in a "cradle-to-grave" employment, accepting the implicit social contract of being 'owned' by a benevolent plantation 'Master' who'd show his appreciation for their hard work and resulting expansion of the plantation by giving them a bed and 3 meals a day in their aging years. When the bankers and brokers and bean-counters took over the management of America's corporations, they found ways to kick these folks to the curb - 'implicit' social contracts aren't worth the non-paper they're not written upon.

The rich believe the poor covet their wealth. It's a projection of the rich coveting even the most trivial of the 'wealth' that the poor may have. Wal*Mart sells to the less affluent - not out of any motive other than separating them from their money and enriching the Walton family even more.

n/t

more likely they are to revolt and string them up?

By the way, why do I never see the "R" word used here very often? It's seems that historically it is the natural outcome of a plutocracy gone berserk.

I just coined it. Some people would also call it self-interest. But, I don't think it's always bad, whatever you want to call it. Sometimes people disassociate for survival. Especially if they live in a bad neighborhood. It can be used for good purposes, as well as for bad.

The horrible prospect that one day someone will be so without hope that only violence and extermination is the answer.

They have to tell themselves they deserve what they have. Therefore, those who don't have it, don't deserve it. Which means they don't deserve anything. Which means it's wrong to let them have anything.

Once you have your mind that twisted....what's left but paranoia?

why fear the poor? There are many reasons, chief of those is two thoughts "If those people ever act in their own interests, then I won't be rich anymore" and "There, but for a number of lucky breaks, go I". People who are rich feel a certain "entitlement" to being so much better off than the rest of the world, and for a great number, an associated guilt too. Which is why guys like Bill Gates turn around and donate so much of their wealth to charities... which then brings up the next thought "I'm special, I have a great purpose on this earth which is WHY I'm rich, because I will do the 'right things' with the wealth that I deserve".

In addition, there is this fear (among the rich who are believers in organized religion), that the next life will bring about some sort of karmic justice where the poor will now lord it over them... so there is a resentment toward the poor in the here and now.

I think, at its root, almost anyone in a more affluent circumstance contemplates how they might cope with the daily survival challenges faced by the working poor and the homeless and is nearly terrorized by the prospect. When facing the fact that many live in a way that one regards with such fear, it's almost impossible to not conclude that those people have more strength or courage or something ... a feeling that's not reconcilable with the comforting and self-serving belief that one's own affluence is "deserved" ... that it's somehow due to one's own 'better choices' or inherently 'superior' capabilities. After all, if the affluent person explains their own affluence as attributable to their own 'greater worth' then how could they regard the state of being impoverished with such fear?? Thus, in a literally conflicted mental state, the affluent person will engage in demeaning and smearing "them" ... as though such castigation will allay their own fears. But it doesn't work. So they do more of it. (It's a form of insanity, imho.)

but it's important to remember that many of them also endow huge foundations to help, like the Annie Casey FOundation, Joan Kroc, Heinz, and even Bill Gates some of the time. Even Carnegie thought enough of his legacy to endow many wonderful libraries and other institutions.


What is troublesome is not caring enough to improve financial standing for the poor, so that there wouldn't need to be so much charity.


Give a man a seed, and all that....

They believe that there is not enough food, water, etc, for the world, and so they have to have theirs, and are afraid that the poor will come take it from them.

because the poor remind them they are not the great people with such control over thier'destinies' as the rich want to think they are. For without their fortune, without luck and allies they too would be poor, they too would be another expendable nobody.
And the rich hate the poor because they know poverty hurts and so they also know some poor people would take what they hoard just to stop their own ever grinding poverty. The rich are some of the most insecure people on Earth. And for the record I am not fond of wealthy people, most of them anyways.What person deserves billions while millions starve die of easy to cure diseases? None.

It pains them that someone might have something THEY could have.

it's never enough. They want it all. It all boils down to no empathy or compassion. Yes. it is a mental illness. It probably devoloped during their early childhood years when their parents MADE them share and it angered them to the point of vowing they would never share when they grew up....so they don't.

"Democrats think the glass is half full. Republicans think the glass is theirs."

It all boils down to nothing but PURE GREED.

that poor people are lazy. Seriously, they believe they are where they are because they worked harder than anyone else. Especially the ones who inherited riches, or had daddies appoint them to high paying jobs. They don't see it as "lucky", they see it as "my family worked harder than your family to get where we are so we deserve everything we get". They believe that poor people are out for a free ride, want everything for free, want others to do their work for them. The rich believe that they slave away BECAUSE poor people are so lazy. That "if only them goddam lazy people would work harder, the rest of us rich wouldn't have to pay so much in taxes".

The rich don't understand that there's only 1 pie and it has to be divided up. The rich aquiring a bigger piece means the poor aquire less. The rich think there are as many pies out there as people want and that poor people just don't care enough to work for the pies. The rich don't understand that many poor people work just as hard as they do, and are only poor because of unfortunate circumstances or bad health or bad luck. Everything they've ever heard has told them "you make your own good luck". They can't understand real, serious financial and career setbacks, because it has never happened to them. You ever talk to someone who has dealt with a serious tragedy, and some idiot says, "Oh, your kid died from a long illness? Mine had a cold once...." That's the rich person right there.

So true.

Money is like crack to them. Gottahavemore gottahavemore we don't care who gets hurt we gotta have more...

and they fear that one day people will realize this simple truth.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

They just prefer to act as though the poor do not exist. Out of sight, out of mind. If they do happen to see a poor person, they assume that the individual chose to be in that economic state.

of the rich restoring feudalism

we need to eliminate the wealthy and the corpo-capitalist horse they rode in on

in the context of considering the administration the enemy.

Most of the incoming officers and appointees assumed the administration worked against the students and didn't like students.

The outgoing stu-gov president pulled me and the other officers aside and said not to be stupid. The university administration didn't work against us. It wasn't that they disliked us. They simply didn't care one way or the other, and had their own agenda. Their agenda didn't go contrary to the students' agenda. Their agenda was set without any regard to our agenda whatsoever.

The same for the rich. To say that the rich hate the poor is to presume the poor loom far larger in the thinking of the rich than they do. I think it's a false presumption. I don't think the rich waste time thinking about the poor, by and large, and certainly don't waste energy hating them. Their agenda is simply set without regard for the poor.

... always looking to the next deal(or hit), getting more just leaves them wanting more, and never being satisfied.

I agree with the above poster. They just view the poor as 'getting in their way' of carrying out their personal selfish agenda.

And they cannot stop themselves.

I learned this when I did graduate work at Yale, surrounded by students whose last names are household words.

For the most part, they were so accustomed to having everything they wanted, that it never occurred to them that not everyone had the same advantages as they. Oh, they knew it intellectually, somewhere back in their minds, but they didn't really get it.

For example, when I needed a fellowship to go to Japan to do my dissertation research, people kept telling me, "Just go." When I said, "With what money?" they said, "Well, maybe they'll let you dip into your trust fund."

When I said that I didn't have a trust fund, they looked bewildered and said, "Well, ask your parents."

When I explained that my parents didn't have enough spare cash lying around to finance a year in Japan, it was if they couldn't process it.

Or there was the time when I was out for dinner with a group that included some old money types (identifiable by their purposely ratty appearance, except for one expensive items--a football jersey, a patchwork skirt, and a crocheted vest worn with obviously expensive leather boots, for example), and one of them didn't want to leave a tip. "I think it's demeaning that waitresses have to grovel for money like that," she declared.

We educated her on the fact that waitresses really depend on tips, and this was news to her. It had simply never crossed her mind that someone might be dependent on accumulating a dollar here and two dollars there.

I've met a number of people who grew up in great wealth and have for various reasons lost it. Their survival skills are minimal, because they act as if they believe that money is an infinite resource. They will spend extravagantly in circumstances where the average person would try to economize. Imagine signing up for a New Age seminar in Guatemala when you've been unemployed for six months and have no savings left.

I used to wish that I had grown up in a wealthy family, and then I met some people who had.

is a heartless bastard just by virtue of having money.

This is a nation which has been brainwashed to believe that greed is good. That wealth is a reward for the morally superior. It's not only preached from every boardroom in America but puplits of megachurches whose leaders live in gilded mansions. God wants you to be rich! If only you pray hard enough, if you are worthy enough, you too will be rewarded!

Of course, none of this is consistent with the true teachings of Jesus. Capitalism is its own twisted faith which has hitched its medicine show to the evangelical wagon. The longer I hang around this planet, the more I'm convinced that unfettered capitalism and democracy are mutually exclusive concepts.

Like John Calvin they believe that wealth is the evidence of evolutionary superiority or moral excellence - two extremely simplistic ideas to say the least.
Although all men are not really created equal in intelligence or abilities somewhere along the line the idea that all persons have worth as human beings has been diluted. Rampant capitalism and greed have been enthroned as normal and healthy impulses to "succeed", those that fail , well they simply couldn't compete. Until society reestablishes a basic concern to provide charitable care for the less fortunate as a real priority (the way Martin Luther King envisioned it for instance) we will continue to live with the embarrassment of tolerating homelessness and the working poor while pouring adulation on the high visibility rich who dazzle us with their conspicuous consumption.

Does Bill Clinton? He's pretty wealthy. What about all the other 'rich' Democrats? Do they hate the poor too?

Rich is a relative term. Most of the people posting here own computers. That makes YOU richer than quite a number of people in this country. Do YOU hate the poor?

Sorry for beating on this, but I think it's ridiculous to make such broad accusations.

After all the shit? Since the beginning of time they've treated the poor like a dung heap...like less than a dung heap. They respect their own fucking turds more than they care for the poor. So is it justifiable for the poor to hate them for all that shit? I think so.

That's why I feel like ripping down almost every single rich person from their high horses all the damn time.

but gold between divide us

Hands and feet are all alike

but fear between divide us...


Dave Matthews

who they helped ruin just makes them see their actions and there's nothing a greedy bastard hates more than being faced with the image of his wrongdoings.