Rich people must not feel guilty
At least if you accumulated your wealth through moral, legal means:
I had lunch with a close friend yesterday. Though he was raised dirt poor (way below poverty level), he’s worked hard to obtain an education, to build a career, and he now owns a couple of businesses. It was never his aim, but now he finds he’s wealthy. He’s proud of his accomplishments — but he also feels guilty.
“I look at my extended family, and they’re still poor,” my friend told me. “They struggle. And yet I have a nice house a nice car and everything I could possibly want.” A few years ago, my friend purchased an expensive car as a reward to himself for his hard work. He could afford it, but somehow over the past few years, he hasn’t enjoyed it as much as he thought he would. He feels embarrassed to drive it. He worries that his kids will grow up to take for granted those things he views as blessings.
The same sentiment is expressed in Orson Scott Card’s Christmas at Helaman’s House. This is perhaps one moral and character flaw that pious people are much too prone to—probably through a misreading of their scripture (in the parable of a rich man and eye of a needle, the problem wasn’t his wealth; it was his attachment to it)—and it’s a tragedy.
Why do I call it a moral flaw? Well, the blog above refers to what would happen if rich people feel guilty. The fact is, poor people don’t feel guilty—maybe shame, if they have any sense—and in fact, they think they deserve everything that they have. What do you call a society where rich people feel undeserving of what they earned and poor people feel deserving of what they didn’t earn? A welfare state. And given how harmful a welfare state is to individual liberty and general welfare (after all, welfare state has to have high taxes and every tax results in dead weight, i.e. lost productivity), if your sense of morality contributes to creation of such a state, your moral compass needs recalibration.
Poor people perhaps cannot help feeling—in fact, they cannot help themselves from a lot of things—like they deserve what they have but did not earn. That’s … tolerable. That’s why they are poor. But rich people must absolutely not feel guilty when they have broken no law and when they have been generous to others.