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The "Filthy Rich" Award Winner
North Miami Beach, FL March 22, 2001
Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then, Opinions pro or con are welcome.
THE "FILTHY RICH" AWARD WINNER
Here, again, I venture into areas in which I have no business venturing.
It occurred to me while reading the center article on the Op Ed page of the
New York Times this morning where John Stuart Mills was quoted as stating
there was a "threshold" beyond which money became in some way tainted. Thus
the "filthy rich award winner" concept that I advance in today's essay.
Authors of the article "A Sensible Tax on Fortunes", Michael S. PcPherson
and Morton Owen Shapiro, bring up an idea that I wrote about years ago and
titled, "Greed." I liked the title and the idea so much I wrote a second
essay called "Greed II." Simply put, there is a point reached, a threshold
beyond which the accumulation of wealth becomes meaningless. How much money
are we talking about? I cannot tell. I cannot tell because I have not
experienced the weight of countless dollars that have piled up in coffers
built to hold so much by some individuals. We can tell when there are
wealthy countries and impoverished countries. We can tell poverty when
photographs of unlucky citizens show them dying of malnutrition and
starvation. In a similar way we Americans testify that our rich habits
produce too many overstuffed citizens who suffer from obesity.
My proposal to "level the playing field" in accumulating wealth is simply
to have a panel of poor and rich get together and study the problem. Then
they will come up with a scale of wealth that leads to a top level called
"filthy rich". This is a level where is so much money that all possible
needs can be satisfied at the highest luxurious peak of sybaritic enjoyment
and yet more money spills over in embarrassing amounts. The panel may
proclaim that this level will fluctuate as the wealth of nations moves up
and down with the vagaries of markets, weather and appearance of disease.
The rise of canny individuals with the knack of thinking up solutions to
human misery may also affect the fortunes of all of us. Holding on to wealth
above this level would be an embarrassment to nations that are
self-proclaimed democracies. The democracy provided the opportunity to
amass stupendous amounts of wealth. We now need to recognize those adepts
who do this and let them share with others the excess over the decently
stated level of "filthy rich".
The solution to embarrassment of people who have become filthy rich is to
have their overages transferred to the people of either their town, state,
nation or the world. This will put them in line to be judged for awards -
like the film, TV and other awards - and then the awards will be made during
appropriate ceremonies.
What this will do is to take the emphasis away from what people have
accumulated and away from taxing this money. There will still be much to
leave to heirs when the time comes because the "filthy rich" standard will
have provided for means to reward the descendants of the lucky or whatever.
But, only so much and not too much.
This yearly ceremony will crown Kings and Queens of giving back to their
societies the overages of their ability to accumulate too much wealth.
In ancient Rome when conquering heroes reached the walls of that city, a
wall was breached so that he would be the only one to enter showing the
uniqueness of his contribution to his empire. We have no such walls except,
perhaps, to place "sensible" limits on excessive wealth that could be shared
by less lucky or able citizens. Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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