MSNBC: The rich are different than the rest of us - and not in a good way, studies suggest

The rich are different — and not in a good way, studies suggest
The 'Haves' show less empathy than 'Have-nots'
By Brian Alexander
msnbc.com contributor
August 10, 2011

Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.

In fact, he says, the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class "ideology of self-interest."

.... rich people are more likely to think about themselves. “They think that economic success and political outcomes, and personal outcomes, have to do with individual behavior, a good work ethic,” said Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Because the rich gloss over the ways family connections, money and education helped, they come to denigrate the role of government and vigorously oppose taxes to fund it.

Whether or not Keltner is right, there certainly is a “let them cake” vibe in the air. Last week The New York Times reported on booming sales of luxury goods, with stores keeping waiting lists for $9,000 coats and the former chairman of Saks saying, “If a designer shoe goes up from $800 to $860, who notices?”

Please read the full article at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44084236/ns/health-behavior/

"We eeeleete republicon fatcats are well aware that poor smelly proles are like, um, racCOONS and shit. They can just scrounge around in our trash cans and cesspools for food and shit. Meanwhile, don't bug us with all this Bleeding Heart crap, we are busy buying elections and making sure their are MORE MORE MORE tax cuts for fatcat republicons, like me who are getting paid $40 million a year to lie to Freepers and TeaBaggers and other assorted Suckers. Smirk. Sneer."

- Rush DraftDodger Limbaugh (R - Chief Propagandist)

and still get up early every morning and bust their ass to make a few thousand more. I don't get it. You don't need the money, even your great-great grandchildren won't need to work a day in their lives. Psychological illness is the only explanation I can come up with.

edited: that degree of greed probably is a mental illness.

It's the POWER.

Several ten millions and you're good for life.

Several Trillion and you are your own country, complete with laws and immunities and a private army if you want.

That's the core of the obsession. Scary, isn't it?

rewards that behavior, particularly at the higher echelons.

... that a society that rewards cooperation tends to create more social and cooperative beings, and that societies that rewarded competition tended to create more anti-social and competitive beings (and those societies tended to die off in the animal world).

The book is called "Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin

is the most obvious thing in the world, and known by every thinking person - greed never has been and never will be self-regulating.

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." --That Dead German Dude Everyone Thinks is Totally Old-Fashioned