A Wealthy Addiction To Wealth

mcclatchydc.com — After the Bush tax cuts created a tornadic updraft of greater wealth to people at the top of America’s income ladder, a friend offered an observation. Having grown up in a wealthy family, he said people who are already rich can never get enough money. They become slaves to the need to keep what they’ve got while striving to acquire more. It sounded as if he was talking about most people’s idea of the American dream, but he didn’t say it in an endearing way. It wasn’t until another friend sent me a decades-old article by Philip Slater in Quest magazine that the earlier statement made sense. Slater wrote that rich people are hopelessly addicted to their own wealth. Not only that, but most other Americans are enablers. Slater calls them “closet addicts.” They seek to join what the Occupy Movement derides as the 1 percenters.

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