Income Inequality Isn't About The Rich. It's About The Rest Of Us

The narcissistic rich think it's about them.

There is a kind of highly-specialized stupidity that is so limiting 

it can only be used to make money.

The merely rich are not rich enough to rule the modern market. The things that change modern history, the big national and international loans, the big educational and philanthropic foundations, the purchase of numberless newspapers, the big prices paid for peerages, the big expenses often incurred in elections - these are getting too big for everybody except the misers; the men with the largest of earthly fortunes and the smallest of earthly aims. There are two other odd and rather important things to be said about them. The first is this: that with this aristocracy we do not have the chance of a lucky variety in types which belongs to larger and looser aristocracies. The moderately rich include all kinds of people even good people. Even priests are sometimes saints; and even soldiers are sometimes heroes. Some doctors have really grown wealthy by curing their patients and not by flattering them; some brewers have been known to sell beer. But among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.    

G. K. Chesterton  

Chesterton Quote Compendium

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/chesterton-to-get-all-that-money-you.html

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"People don't hate you because you're beautiful. People hate you because they are getting uglier. Use that logic, substituting income for attractiveness, and you'll have a better grasp of why the 99.9 percent really resent the 0.1 percent." Catherine Rampell in The Washington Post.