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Can a rich person be a good person? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I don't mean doctor-making-150k-a-year rich, I mean properly rich with millions to billions of dollars.

I think many will say yes, they can be, though it may be rare. I was tempted to. I thought more about it and I wondered, are you really a good person if you're hoarding enough money you and your family couldn't spend in 10 lifetimes?

I thought, if you're a good person, you wouldn't be rich. And if you're properly rich you're probably not a good person.

I don't know if it's fair or naive to say, but that's what I thought. Whether it's what I believe requires more thought.

There are a handful of ex-millionaires who are no longer millionaires because they cared for others in a way they couldn't care for themselves. Only a handful of course, I would say they are good people.

And in order to stay rich, you have to play your role and participate in a society that oppresses the poor which in turn maintains your wealth. Are you really still capable of being a good person?

Very curious about people's thoughts on this.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

To me, being good is a function of altruism, while being bad is a function of egoism. This starts to get whacky when you do an altruistic thing for egoistic motives (ie donating for recognition) but it serves me as a baseline, and by that understanding, I would say yes, theoretically it is possible. However, in most scenarios I can think of, the way that a person becomes rich will be filled with egoistical decisions and thus be bad.

I am currently re-reading pedagogy of the oppressed by Freire though, and he brings up a good point: charity and being charitable will always lead to an unjust system, because the person feeing charitable, to be able to do that, needs to perpetuate a system in which they have more, and where there is a poor one to give to. So he would say not really because the being rich in and of itself is a symptom of an amoral system. And I have to say that's a good point