A rich person yesterday
The point is not to whinge about these geezers getting rich off the sweat of poor people's toil (something which, though, is certainly true) but to wonder at the amount of investigation required to create the list and at its political and ideological function. As for the first point, there can't be that much effort needed to put this sort of thing together. Given the social stasis in Britain, the same names will keep appearing year after year. True, the amounts neded to make the cut, increase each year by around 10 million pounds, but you or me aren't going to be on it any time soon. The reasons for this are not too difficult to explain. Firstly wealth generates wealth. Like the interest on a debt, but the other way round, the amounts just keep getting bigger. Also, on the political front, there is no challenge to their fortunes. The ('left wing') government in Britain has been 'business friendly' from since before it got elected - who can forget Manleson cooing that, "New Labour is totally relaxed about the extremely rich."? - British tax policies get more regressive as time goes on (see the 10 pence tax rate being abolished) and there are few signs that any kind of political counter-reaction is about to set in (despite the strikes in the public sector coming up). Thus next year's list will be that much more predictable. (On the same lines - Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal will be in the top four Premiership Teams next year. It is no coincidence that Derby were mathematically relegated in early March - the earliest a relegation has ever happened).
Secondly, the reporters themselves will not even have to leave the office to conduct their enquiries. Previous biographies and stories will be archived and easily accessible. Philip Beresford the compiler of the 1000 long name list says he draws up the list through "voraciously" poring through newspapers (gasp) and magazines and although the disparities in their wealth are astronomical, the investigators will inhabit the same upper bourgeois class world in which certain things are expected and taken for granted. Plus, the members on the list all live, coincidentally, in the capital itself, home, of course, to the Sunday Times as well. So, Beresford's quip that he has a network of spies "...better than the KGB." that find it all out, is his way of saying that he doesn't need to do any hard 'sociology' at all. He can write about them almost at will. They will not have to overstretch their imaginations too much.
Finally, they must find it fun to get to see the rich at work and at play, enjoy a sliver of their largesse maybe and to write about it. They know its successful, Ian Coxon is quick to point out that publication of the list always boosts circulation, its a list and lists are in a sad sort of way intersting and admits that the subject, for him, is fascinating.
This fascination is political. There are far more intersting things in the world to be fascinated about after all - nature, stars, poetry, the list is practically endless. This sort of fascination this sort of list, though, goes deep into our 'social conciousnesses'. The fact that the second name on the list owned a house in Chelsea Square and liked it so much he bought the house next door, whilst not exactly 'touching', triggers a profound emotion in people. A lot of us will never really own our own homes - if we do at the end of the mortgate - it deosn't contain the word 'mort' for nothing, of course - it probably won't be for very long. Of course, many people who live in their own homes have problems paying this debt off. More of us rent - and some will see their money heading into the Duke of Westminster's pocket - and have long since shrugged off the 'dream' of owner occupation (which sounds like American foreign policy anyway) and so the idea of just buying a house like that needs some further reading. How do they do it? Where does the money come from? Why can't I have a house like that? The fact that these people employ conscierges, butlers, chaffeurs enjoy luxury hotels food and holidays and who posses power over others reveal assumptions, emotions and maybe aspirations in a lot of people, maybe even the most hard line revolutionaries. Even to think, just for a moment, about 'what you would do if you won the lottery', is to be taken in by its hallucinatory narratives.
These thoughts are entrenched in the set of political, economic and ideological perspectives which are themselves historically linked to the current system of economic production and its past and the representations of that past. These perspectives centre around the vanishing point of economic striving and gain. Whether one looks at education, law, the media, news, religion or entertainment, we are, of course, continually assuaged and inculcated with the unquestionable assumption that to get rich marks you out as specail, is admirable and is a vindication of a person's worth. (One memory from school suddenly occurs to me. We are sat in Assembly and are read a story from the Bible. The one about the three sons who each get a pot of gold, unbeknownst to them, as a test. the first squanders it, the second buries it but the third goes out into the world, 'invests' it and makes a fortune. "Which one is God pleased with everybody?" 'The last one of course'). The examples are everywhere all ready. But the point is not that of 'Décroissance'. There is no point castigating anybody. It is a social given for the moment. What is the point is that this fascination with the rich - naturally the Rich List relies on the fascination the former does not create the latter - this seeming to be 'always ever present' need felt by millions to emulate them has a political and ideological basis.
Marx once said something along the lines that a happy man will become unhappy if a prince builds his castle next door (though he could feel richer if it increases property values around the area). The once happy man, it is supposed, compares his, hitherto perfectly respectable, dwelling, then at the prince's, and feel bitter. A political situation has been created. From this one, plausible enough, example one could build an entire city and one in which the princes themselves will face the same sort of challenge. Aranovich buys two houses in Belgravia does he? Well I shall buy an entire office block! The list itself generates its own resentments and ambitions as well. Seven hundred and thirty first last year, six hundreth and twenty third this!
What does the poor man do in the meantime? He can shrug his shoulders and plough on regardless; 'Why be resentful?' - 'nature will provide' or he may think to be motivated at all would be akin to shaking your fist at the rain. He could sustain and harbour his rancour and turn it into ambition. He could let it develop into anger and overthrow the prince of course, but instead, for many reasons, he may settle for a resigned jealousy and sense of inadequacy.
Some money early this morning
The first option is Epicurean. It withdraws from the public world of acquisitions, fame and success and settles for domestic quietude - babies and other vegetables. To this figure, the rich list is forgettable, even risible, though, admittedly, it may be accompanied with a sentiment analogous to Aesop's fox (after his failure to secure the highest, sweetest grapes) and schadenfreude when the hyper-rich fall from grace and into penury. But it is impossible for millions of urban people, to live like this. There is no retreat possible and one gets one's face rubbed in it all too often and for too long to rise above it like a saint.
The second response, the 'heroic' response holds our attention. Even when it is a tragic anti-hero ( at random, Delboy, Blackadder, John Self in Money) we are asked, sometimes very powerfully, to give these guys a break, to give them the benefit of the doubt they are just like you all after all. The ghostly accompianiment to this indulgence is the idea that go getting is there, your family, your friends your neighbours are all at it and it really is an option. It could be you after all. Maybe at times, this ambition is motivated by similar 'sentiments' in the third example. So much the better. But thousands try, few get lucky. Poor people's ideas, like grandpa's dream of collecting thousands of oranges in Grapes of Wrath, are (often) products of despair not of sustainable business propositions.
The third option is poltically and pychologically of more interest. Feelings of resentment and inadequacy are two intensely political sentiments. Political in the sense that they can and often do disrupt otherwise 'rational' proceedings that characterise the operations of capital. The list makes this poor(er) man sneer and wish for unfortunate turns of events to do away whole thing, in some way or other. No truck here to the idea that 'socialism is motivated by envy' - not all jealous people are left wing, (nor, perhaps, vice verca).
Jealousy and resentment and their related emotions, are the essentials in the cement that hold social inequalities in place, guarantee 'order' and maintain social stasis. They shape behaviour (death rates for the rich and poor are, by definition, very different, as are rates of disease and educational success and the confidence it brings) and, so, attitudional development.
These possibilities merge and disintegrate into one another. One person could experience them all in a single day one 'hero' can feel bitter one day which serves to fuel his ambition the next and so on. They mingle like paint on a canvas - but for the moment, away with them! For this is but an introduction for those who would dare to take the opposite route, the more taxing direction and make life harder for themselves. These people are the ones who leave the city's bright lights behind and travel into darkness to create their lists. Could we face, though, their observations and conclusions of their 'sociology', the products of their "KGB agents" with the same fascination - those who set out to create the poor list?
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