[jonnylynchy]

I agree that there are rich people who know little about what it's like to be poor or even middle class. But not all rich people were always rich.

I grew up poor, and was poor as a young adult. After working 2 jobs, going to school and trying to keep my family together on next to nothing, I was able to climb my way up and get to "middle class".

Despite being poor for a while, my kids were happy and they didn't know anything different. When we were able to finally afford cable, my oldest daughter couldn't believe she could watch cartoon network. It was the best feeling knowing that I was able to provide some level of comfort to my family without struggling every month to know how we were going to afford basic utilities and food.

We moved to an apartment near an affluent area where my kids would be able to go to a good school. There we met some very wealthy people. Casual conversations with these people regularly included topics such as going on vacation to Hawaii for a month, going to a ritzy steakhouse for dinner regularly, etc. I was surprised at how these people just expected others to be able to afford the same luxuries.

At the same time, I also met some wealthy people who didn't talk like that. After getting to know some of them, I learned that some actually earned their way there. They grew up poor, worked hard, went to school, worked harder, had some luck by being in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills, and eventually became wealthy.

What I learned during this time is that rich people are not always rich because someone handed it all to them. Some are very much in that category though. You can always tell by their conversations. Rich people who have never been poor or even middle class will converse about things casually that poor people can only dream about, while those who did not grow up rich reserve those conversation topics and are sensitive to other financial situations. This is why I think the 1% is a sliding scale to some extent. It's not a static group of people so we have to stop demonizing all rich people.

[chrispickels]

Just as a counterpoint, the stereotype is the opposite — nouveau riche are gaudy, make vulgar displays of wealth, while old money has “class” and is more discreet.

Personally I think it’s all bullshit and you have people of all types on both ends. It’s orthogonal.

[BlameKaneda]

> I also met some wealthy people who didn't talk like that...I learned that some actually earned their way there. They grew up poor, worked hard, went to school, worked harder, had some luck by being in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills, and eventually became wealthy.

I have to ask, but how many of these people have had the mindset that "X is poor because they're not working hard enough" or "I worked hard which is why I'm not poor, why can't Y be that way?"

If I had to guess, a good number of them have had those thoughts in the past, but whether or not they still think like that or they've moved on (and have admitted---to themselves or to others---that it's a negative viewpoint) is hard to say.

[jonnylynchy]

You may be right. I never asked what they thought about poor people or the reasons they were poor. It would be a good conversation to have. Knowing what I know about some of those people, I would guess their response would be something along the lines of "It's possible for many people to earn and work their way up IF they make wise choices along the way and don't give up. It's not easy by any means."

The rich who had it handed to them likely wouldn't even have a thought like that cross their minds. It's more like "Oh... huh, poor people? Yeah, I don't know. What's poor?"

[DistressedDrone]

The thing is, it's all luck.

Policies are made with the idea that someone like you must have somehow "earned" it, and you may believe it yourself, but no one chooses to be poor. You were lucky enough to get a good job, lucky enough to be able to work so much without burning out, lucky to be born smart, or a man, or white. It all adds up and it's all luck. You always made the most optimal choice you thought possible, as anyone would.

Yet the pervasive idea that one can "earn it" and become rich through sheer willpower has the unfortunate implication that those who are "still" poor must somehow deserve it. If some can grit their teeth through their misfortune and achieve upward social mobility, why can't they all? This is of course absurd of the face of it because your gain was someone else's loss, we can't all be "rich" as it is inherently relative. But also because any given poor person generally has the goal if not the priority of becoming less poor. Having grown up poor, no one wants to believe it's a permanent state of affairs.

Generally speaking, everyone works hard and no one wants to be poor. Yet modern capitalism (even our Canadian version) is largely engineered to punish the poor for being so, even though in the end, it's all luck.

Edit: Here's an interesting paper on the topic of misattribution of success: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/7/eaau1156.full