Rich people more unethical

Rich people more unethical, likely to cheat and steal, study finds

Rich people are more unethical and likely to cheat, break the law or plain behave badly towards other people, a new study has found.

It may involve upper class people cutting off other motorists, lying in a negotiation, cheating to win a prize or even stealing candy from children, according to the Canadian Press, but researchers from the universities of California and Toronto found that wealthier people are more apt to behave unethically than those who had less money.

I've always known this to be the case. To get wealthy in this world you have to be unethical imo. Capitalism is an unethical system leading to more and more self interest, at the expense of the community you live in. Do you want to live in a mansion surrounded by slums?

I would say for the most part, more un-ethical. Even in my own case of trying to acquire wealth, I have acted unethically and admit to it freely. I have changed my ways since.

Guilt was the catalyst that made me see the light. Guilt is something that I do not want to carry to my death.
In this monetary system that we use, it is almost essential that you act this way, either by exaggerating the benefits of your product/service and at the same time criticising your competitors products/service ,even when you are aware that a competitors product/service is better/cheaper.
Commonly known as "white lies". IMO white lies are just lies, and lies are unethical.

We call this competition, and the rich are probably considered the winners in this competition. Competition in regards to economics requires one to use "every trick in the book" to maximise profits however unethical it is. Manipulating a tax system, delaying/not paying creditors, bending/ignoring laws, setting up trusts/tax havens etc, could be considered unethical.

But the word unethical is subjective. "Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".
I doubt that most of the rich have any set "moral philosophy" as such. Its the umbrella of laws and legality that the rich work under not ethics. Ethics as we all know are mostly ignored/deflected in any monetary system that involves competitive free market forces.
Ethics and a free market are incompatible. They shouldnt be but they are.

Legality without any or very little moral philosophy is what drives this current economic system.
So to be successful in this system ethics are ignored for the most part and legalities are embraced.

IMO with this in mind, for the most part "the rich are more unethical". There are exceptions of course, but not many.

Peace

Thanx for the reply Lexx.

There is no morality in capitalism. Those at the top find ways to justify what they do. Even worship idols in 'cremations of care' at yearly meetings in groves, to wash away all the guilt of screwing the world over.

Yes screwing people over is called competition. If they can justify what they do by law, then they can consider their actions ethical. But most of those laws were created by capitalists to allow their unethical behavior in the first place.

Yeah it's not all rich people, and 'rich people' is not really the term I would have used, I would have just said 'capitalists are more unethical' (capitalists, as in those who earn their living from their capital, and the exploitation of labour). Really it's the system itself that is unethical, and unethical people take full advantage of it, regardless of it's effects on others.

These articles point out these truths, but fail to make the connections with the real root of the problem. That being the private ownership of the means of production, capitalism. The system that allows unethical psychopaths to monopolise resources, and make them artificially scarce in order to make massive profits for themselves, denying people who are in need of those resources.

He who is without sin cast the first stone.

Another pro 99% thread and now I must ask, what is ethical about vandalizing and pooping in public?

Originally posted by Alxandro
He who is without sin cast the first stone.

Another pro 99% thread and now I must ask, what is ethical about vandalizing and pooping in public?

edit on 29-2-2012 by Alxandro because: (no reason given)

I don't poop in public or vandalise, please take your bias somewhere else. This is a discussion about the unethical behavior of capitalism, not your beef with OWS. This thread is nothing to do with OWS, I have no affiliation with OWS.

Now, if you have a comment regarding the unethical nature of the capitalists system...

he who is with sin will cast the second and third and forth and fifth stone.

But he wont throw his gold. People will be trusted to be people afraid of what will hurt them and indignant towards what they can hurt.

So what? whats the point of the "study" .. outlaw rich people? ... god people waste time studying pointless crap.

Can we get back to cancer research now?

More unethical, you say?

More likely to cheat, you say? Or steal? Or just generally eeeeevil?

You don't say?

Nope. I'm fairly certain, from my own experiences with being poor, that money has little or nothing to do with it...

That's your own bias talking, nothing more.

The Capitalist will never give up his means of production.
he will stoop to anything ethical or not to hold on to his wealth.

Originally posted by Huggiesunrise
So what? whats the point of the "study" .. outlaw rich people? ... god people waste time studying pointless crap.

Can we get back to cancer research now?

Well to me it helps point out the futility of the capitalist system, and hope maybe people will start to wake up and realise it's not what it claims to be, and then maybe they will learn that their are viable alternatives.

Capitalism has killed far more people than cancer.

Yes, you will have a hard time being a success with out throwing ethics out the window. Not new news.

I've worked in a couple of retail positions over the years and the wealthier the client is the higher chance they're gonna be a pain to deal with, from rude-ness to wanting to pay less, basically being tight with their money and having a inflated sense of entitlement. I'd like to put my foot in the ass of a lot of the rich people I've had to deal with over the years. Contrarily, it's usually the little old lady who is barely getting by who says 'keep the change sonny'. Hang the rich.

id have to say that there is bad people in every class.

ive meet plenty of evil rich guys, and plenty of evil poor guys.

Originally posted by braydenf
id have to say that there is bad people in every class.

ive meet plenty of evil rich guys, and plenty of evil poor guys.

I guess it's where you come from. I've been in the company of some very wealthy people, and coming from a meager background myself I've seen both sides of the coin, and I can tell you honestly, on the whole, and I am generalizing here, poor people are more prone to look out for each other whilst people who have lots are usually more prone to callousness. Just my experience.

Originally posted by seabhac-rua

Originally posted by braydenf
id have to say that there is bad people in every class.

ive meet plenty of evil rich guys, and plenty of evil poor guys.

I guess it's where you come from. I've been in the company of some very wealthy people, and coming from a meager background myself I've seen both sides of the coin, and I can tell you honestly, on the whole, and I am generalizing here, poor people are more prone to look out for each other whilst people who have lots are usually more prone to callousness. Just my experience.

i would agree with this. this, of course, is oversimplification and there are other factors to be considered, but generally i have found this. for example, i moved within the same town to a street that had more wealthy home owners than my previous street including several business owners, and on my old street everyone helped each other with a few exceptions. here at my new house we pretty much have an all out war going on between us and our next door neighbor, not to mention our landlord and a few other neighbors.

Indeed,

rich hardly means successful.

Capitalism is almost synonymous with extortion corruption and greed if you look at how most "rich" people make money through "business".

How could they be so greedy and worry about only themself and/or their own "kind". I mean gosh its not like when we die, we take anything material with us

I wonder, couldn't that also be read as "educated people are more unethical?"

What I'm thinking is perhaps, due to their education, some are more able to perform a cost-benefit analysis on a situation. They would be considering the risks and rewards of a given action more than those who just obey what they're told to do by society.

Perhaps, also, advanced education trains people to reject societal norms and Judaeo-Christian teaching.

I'm not sure that I believe those very strongly, but I think a case could be made out for them and they should be considered as possibilities.

Originally posted by charles1952
I wonder, couldn't that also be read as "educated people are more unethical?"

What I'm thinking is perhaps, due to their education, some are more able to perform a cost-benefit analysis on a situation. They would be considering the risks and rewards of a given action more than those who just obey what they're told to do by society.

Perhaps, also, advanced education trains people to reject societal norms and Judaeo-Christian teaching.

I'm not sure that I believe those very strongly, but I think a case could be made out for them and they should be considered as possibilities.

did you read the first post? the claim was that they were more likely to do things, of which examples were given, that were unethical. it didn't have to do with using more cost effective ways of doing things, it discussed doing things that were rude, unethical, and outright dishonest. idc how "cost effective" something is. if you have to tread on others in order to achieve it, it is not worth doing.

as for them rejecting Christian teachings being a part of the reason, what are you on about? please don't tell me you are one of those "if they don't believe in the Christian God, or at least some God, then you have no moral compass" types. that is such an ignorant belief it is unbelievable.

btw, ANOK, do you have a link to the original article your quote came from?

reply to post by eboyd

Dear eboyd,

Wow! I really blew that one! Man, I'm sorry. I try to be clear, but I failed miserably this time. Please let me try to fix it.

When I wrote about "cost-benefit analysis" I wasn't talking about money. Maybe I should have said "risk-benefit analysis?" Let me use an example from the article, cheating to win a prize. What's the benefit to doing that? Winning the prize, of course. What's the cost or risk, even if you get caught? The rich, might say "There is no cost, I don't care what they say, and I'm not going to go to jail for it, so it's all good."

The benefit stays the same if you're rich or poor, winning the prize. But for some, the cost is greater than the benefit, so they don't do the unethical action. The study seems to be saying that rich people find the cost of doing a bad thing to be lower than poor people find it.

As far as the Judaeo-Christian thing, that's one of the huge sources we have for telling us what's right and wrong. If a person believes that lying puts their immortal soul in jeopardy, they may be less likely to lie than someone who believes there is no punishment for a bad act. Universities are not hotbeds for teaching objective morality, rather it's more "Do what you think is best under the circumstances, follow your own heart, do what you will."

I hope I've clarified myself a little, but thank you for pointing out that I was being fuzzy in the first place.

With respect,
Charles1952

Originally posted by ANOK
I've always known this to be the case. To get wealthy in this world you have to be unethical imo.

Is it that being unethical means a person is more able to become wealthy, or that wealth means a person is more likely to become unethical?

Personally, I'd vouch for the second opinion; a wealthy person is more likely to feel seperate from 'the masses' due to their wealth - placing themselves above society thanks to the mythology of the 'self-made man', etc. and thus making them more likely to act like arrogant twats to those they consider beneath themselves.

Capitalism is an unethical system leading to more and more self interest, at the expense of the community you live in.

Capitalism, when properly restrained by a state which works in the interests of society as a whole, leads to greater prosperity for all.

Do you want to live in a mansion surrounded by slums?

No, which is why the rich tend to group together.

Hey! That's not always true! It all depends on how you came about having money. If you worked hard for it and earned your wealth by your own merit...most likely you are going to be thoughtful of what it was like when you were poor.

The poor tend to always be the target of unethical scams or even legal ones...like say Bank Fees....but people who earned their wealth tend to be highly ethical. Split Infinity