Are Rich People more prone to be unethical?

polaris_x

Blockhead wrote:

Ahhh yes, its the wealthy/rich people making poor people commit crimes...
:roll: Anything else you want to blame on wealthy people?

let's see here ... we have some of the biggest corporate frauds go on that involved a bunch of wealthy people that resulted in many people losing their life savings and did any of them serve time? ... yet, some kid caught with a joint is in jail for 5 years ...

you know why else poor people are in prisons - they can't afford the expensive lawyers to get them off ... you think OJ would have gotten off if he was poor?? ...

inlet13

From my perspective, the question begins with a bias and the analysis most likely followed suit.

I'd bet, in truth, some rich people are unethical and some poor people are unethical. In percentage, they are probably roughly even, depending on the sample.

Jeanwah

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

Jeanwah wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

people always say "anybody can get rich". but i do not think that this is true because in many cases gaining wealth means taking advantage of someone at some point, and some people have a problem with that.

I tend to agree with this and have seen it way first hand way too often. But I don't like to stereotype. I have seen some rich people be generous, but not as often.

i said in many cases, not in all cases.

look at goldman sachs and the letter that that man wrote yesterday as he resigned. he said that people were there to rip people off. they were getting rich off of the backs of those that they were supposed to be helping. is that unethical? to quote palin, "you betcha!!"

white collar crime is no better or more excusable than those crimes committed by the poor.

What's weird about goldman sachs is that of course they were ripping people off; it wasn't surprising to me. Most white collar business is in one way or another not honest. So I guess in saying that, of course the rich in exec positions are screwing someone else to maintain that position. Business becomes dirtier, the bigger it gets. That is a fact.

blackredyellow

I think the difference lies in the effect it has on others...

I mean, rich people are usually people in power or have the ability to influence others. If someone with that sort of power do something unethical, it probably has more far reaching consequences than everyday Joe Lower Management Guy who fudges some data on a weekly report or something like that.

hedonist

JonnyPistachio wrote:

I do think its easier to be unethical if you have no one to answer to.

But then that's not being ethical to begin with, is it?

No matter how wealthy or not they are, one always has to answer to themselves...I would hope, anyway.

Monster Rain

blackredyellow wrote:

I think the difference lies in the effect it has on others...

I mean, rich people are usually people in power or have the ability to influence others. If someone with that sort of power do something unethical, it probably has more far reaching consequences than everyday Joe Lower Management Guy who fudges some data on a weekly report or something like that.

People who aren't rich can still affect others. If a lower-leve manager is fudging numbers to make himself look better, that could have a negative effect on another manager who is being honest. The lying manager could wind up getting a better raise, bonus, or promotion based on the fact that he lied to make himself look better than his peers. That could also wind up hurting the company down the line when there is a correction to those fudged numbers (or even hurt tha tmanager's replacement, who might take the blame for the sudden "decline" in that department's performance). As a general rule, something unethical will always have an impact on someone else. If it didn't, then there wouldn't be a question about ethics.

Go Beavers

inlet13 wrote:

From my perspective, the question begins with a bias and the analysis most likely followed suit.

I'd bet, in truth, some rich people are unethical and some poor people are unethical. In percentage, they are probably roughly even, depending on the sample.

The studies should have been done by a Russian newspaper, then it would be solid.

peacefrompaul

Blockhead wrote:

polaris_x wrote:

Blockhead wrote:

Want to tell me what the prison stats say about poor people...

uhhh ... i'm not sure ... why don't you enlighten us?

http://www.fcnetwork.org/Resource%20Cen ... tm#NOTES35
"At the time of their arrest, 90% had an income below $25,000, and 69% had an income below poverty level"

Most is blue collar crime, what if we paid more attention to white collar crime?

peacefrompaul

hedonist wrote:

JonnyPistachio wrote:

I do think its easier to be unethical if you have no one to answer to.

But then that's not being ethical to begin with, is it?

No matter how wealthy or not they are, one always has to answer to themselves...I would hope, anyway.

Mmm yes I agree. I would feel like crap if I treated people like crap.

JOEJOEJOE

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

i heard about this a few weeks ago. i was not surprised by the findings, but rich people usually know the system and are able to work it their advantage, and sometimes that involves being somewhat less than ethical.

people always say "anybody can get rich". but i do not think that this is true because in many cases gaining wealth means taking advantage of someone at some point, and some people have a problem with that.

How do you define "taking advantage of someone" ?

Cosmo

I'm in agreement that ethical behaviour spans economic classes, just as it spans ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, cat people or dog people.
The thing I believe to be different is the scale of the breach of ethics and our perception of it. For example, everyone's blood boils when we read about the person who swindles $30,000.00 in Food Stamps and calls for the shutdown of the entire welfare system. Yet, at the same time, we read about Wall Street big wigs bilking billions of dollars and plunging hundreds of thousands into foreclosure... and we blame the people who are upside down on their mortgages. We tend to give the rich a break. And I'm not talking about the $200,000.00 annual salary dolts... that's chump change to the uber rich and their multi billions. To us, $30,000.00 is terms we can relate to and we want to take that Welfare Fraud and string him up by his balls, don't we. We really don't care about the greed mongers at Goldman Sachs, because we cannot relate to the numbers because it is far beyong out comprehension. We let them off the hook because we don't really know if what they are doing is THAT wrong, do we? I think it is because we cannot come close to even imagining how much a $800,000,000.00 or $1,000,000,000.00 is. Yet, to them, $200,000.00 is the annual caviar allowance.
I'm not saying one unethical decision is lesser or worse than the other... I believe we see the person commiting the breach of ethics and judge him/her based upon his/her standing in our society.

brianlux

What the article doesn't seem to define is, what is rich? Compared to third world countries, most American are rich. In an average American household there are how many TV's, cell phones, cars, computers? Yes, most of us are rich.

The other question that comes to my mind is, to what extent is the acquisition of our income ethical? Lot's of gray area there. Let's use the business I'm in for example. I don't make a lot of money selling books (well, ok, if you're from Burundi I'm stinkin' rich) and I try my best to make a decent but fair living. If I sell a trade paper copy of To Kill a Mockingbird I'm making a customer happy, I make some change and feel good. In my first year as a book seller I made my biggest sale thus far in terms of pure profit- a first edition Jack London (a lesser title) that I found on a table marked "free" in a yard sale. I told the person running the yard sale that I was sure the book was valuable and I HAD to pay for it. He looked at me, smiled and said, "Can't you read? The sign on that table says free!" I replied, "Yes, but really, this book..." and he replied, "Man, you really can't read, can you? It says FREE!" So I took the book. I don't think that was unethical, but it surely felt so. I later sold that book to another book dealer at a Book fair for $100. The dealer was quite happy knowing he too could turn a profit on the book but never-the-less, I felt uneasy about making such a tremendous profit. I've since learned that this sort of thing only happens once or twice in a book dealers career and the rest of the time it's mostly hard work for little money but still, that transaction felt a bit unethical to me.

So where do we draw the line?

Cosmo

brianlux wrote:

What the article doesn't seem to define is, what is rich? Compared to third world countries, most American are rich. In an average American household there are how many TV's, cell phones, cars, computers? Yes, most of us are rich.

The other question that comes to my mind is, to what extent is the acquisition of our income ethical? Lot's of gray area there. Let's use the business I'm in for example. I don't make a lot of money selling books (well, ok, if you're from Burundi I'm stinkin' rich) and I try my best to make a decent but fair living. If I sell a trade paper copy of To Kill a Mockingbird I'm making a customer happy, I make some change and feel good. In my first year as a book seller I made my biggest sale thus far in terms of pure profit- a first edition Jack London (a lesser title) that I found on a table marked "free" in a yard sale. I told the person running the yard sale that I was sure the book was valuable and I HAD to pay for it. He looked at me, smiled and said, "Can't you read? The sign on that table says free!" I replied, "Yes, but really, this book..." and he replied, "Man, you really can't read, can you? It says FREE!" So I took the book. I don't think that was unethical, but it surely felt so. I later sold that book to another book dealer at a Book fair for $100. The dealer was quite happy knowing he too could turn a profit on the book but never-the-less, I felt uneasy about making such a tremendous profit. I've since learned that this sort of thing only happens once or twice in a book dealers career and the rest of the time it's mostly hard work for little money but still, that transaction felt a bit unethical to me.

So where do we draw the line?

...
Sometimes... you just have to graciously accept.