I have honestly never understood contempt for the rich.
Of course, there is “rich” – and then there is rich.
Saying you are in the top 1% of wealth globally (~$32,400 annual) is very different than saying you are in the top 1% in America (~$488,000 annual).
But many have a misguided line of reasoning that equates one’s level of wealth with their level of greed. And all this is somehow wrapped up and blamed on capitalism. What nonsense.
There is no nation or political philosophy that is exempt from “greed” as an institution.
Capitalism is in fact the only way in which people are made wealthy by serving the needs of others (harnessing greed, to good ends).
When wealth is gained by other means, it is nothing but theft and should be called for what it is, evil.
For-goodness-sake, don’t discount the aspirational component of it all either. Everyone I know aspires to a better life, which money is a part of.
Understand: Wealth is, after all, the cure for poverty.
If the world is indeed a ‘vale of soul making’ it seems on the whole to be doing its work. Of poverty—the affliction which actually or potentially includes all other afflictions—I would not dare to speak as from myself; and those who reject Christianity will not be moved by Christ’s statement that poverty is blessed. But here a rather remarkable fact comes to my aid. Those who would most scornfully repudiate Christianity as a mere ‘opiate of the people’ have a contempt for the rich, that is, for all mankind except the poor.
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain (Amazon)
