What MAKES People View Socioeconomic Wealth With Suspicion, Even Negatively

Our society admires and avidly encourages success. We have been inculcated that success is a good, if not a great thing, to aspire to and achieve. Our role models are successful people who have overcame obstacles in their lives. We were also given another message regarding success-while it is admirable to strive for and attain success, one should not be TOO successful. Success, if it is to be achieved, should be on acceptable, even moderate levels.

America purports herself to be the society of the middle class. While being poor is viewed somewhat negatively in American society, oftentimes being wealthy is even viewed more negatively. It is often thought that the wealthy are overreached their bounds socioeconomically. American society is the society that reveres the Average Joe/Josephina because it is believed that such people have solid, homespun values. The idea is although they are successful, they are quite unobtrusive in terms of their success. Another idea is they do not let such success go to their heads.

The middle class is glorified in American society because they are deemed moderate and reasonable in terms of their success. They are seen to have strong and prudent values. They are considered to be quintessential Americans. The premise related to us that success is indeed good but only within certain parameters. Inordinate success is viewed as excessive, even obsessive. People who are overly ambitious are somehow viewed as flawed by many in our society and culture. It is routinely believed that they are pursuing success because of an unfulfilled void in their lives. In essence, it is argued that they are missing something in their lives whether it is friends, family, and/or other interests; if such were not the case, they would not be compensating for such missing component in their so-called extreme pursuit of success.

Highly successful and wealthy people are considered suspect because they dared to go beyond what is deemed acceptable and moderate levels of success. Wealth is oftentimes considered to be an eyesore. The reasoning behind such a premise is that while it is good to have a comfortable socioeconomic standard of living, anything beyond this is considered to be extravagant, wasteful, even greedy. It is strongly contended that people only need a sustainable income to live comfortably and find it quite odd that people want to attain wealth. To such people, wealth is considered the ultimate degree of pure avarice.

There are some people to whom socioeconomic wealth and the attainment are the sources of corruption and other problems. Their assertion is that wealth brings disrepair and creates havoc in families, relationships, and societies. They further argue that wealth corrupts, even debases, the true definition and the sanctity of family and relationships, placing money above and before all.

Some contend that it is fallacious that wealth improves the quality of life and standards of living. They insist that the obsessive pursuit of wealth causes people to divert their energies from more substantive components in their lives in order to focus such energies in so-called meaningless, even transitory pursuits. They feel that people who are consumed in pursuing wealth are missing the so-called more important and authentic components of life.

Others adamantly believe that attaining a moderate level of success and wealth are far more ethical, even moral than attaining wealth. They contend that people should acquire and use what they truly need and no more. They are of the school that avidly pursuing and attaining wealth is wasteful and the definition of avarice. They assert that people can only reasonably use a certain amount of wealth, arguing that people do not need more wealth than it is deemed necessary.

There are some people who have a poverty mindset, psychology, and consciousness. They view socioeconomic struggle, even socioeconomic deprivation, as a normative and acceptable lifestyle. They cannot see a lifestyle beyond the most rudimentary socioeconomic existence. Since they are seemingly happy with their lifestyle, they refuse to understand why people would want to pursue and attain wealth. They are the ones who inculcate those with different views, psychologies, and mindsets regarding wealth that the attainment of wealth is out of their reach, informing them to be content with their station in life.

They view socioeconomic struggle and/or deprivation as quite ennobling, even character building. They are of the school that life is nothing if one does not do without socioeconomically. They take pride,,even rationalize,living at a subsistent level or just barely. They contend that they are better, more authentic people because such socioeconomic struggle makes them more appreciative and conscious of life. In their estimation, wealthy people are not as morally strong as they are because the latter have everything at their asking and disposal. They contend that wealthy people have it too good thus are spoiled because they do not have to struggle and/or being deprived socioeconomically.

There are people who glorify being poor. They maintain that being poor, even being in poverty, is far nobler and more spiritually authentic than being wealthy. Many cite religious dogma and citations that being poor makes one more attuned to spiritual consciousness. They further denigrate wealth as antithetical to spiritual values. They proclaim that wealth and its related values such as materialism are taking humankind away from its original state of consciousness and lowering it to a more darker aspect of existence. They see the pursuit and attainment of wealth as the ultimate falsehood.

Others see wealth and money as the ultimate evil. They were inculcated in such a premise from childhood by their parents and religious authorities. To them, wealthy people are utterly conscienceless and devoid of the core component of morality. Such people perceive wealthy people as being ruthless, putting money above the needs and good of humanity. They view wealthy people as more connected to and concerned with the physical and temporal world than the spiritual world.

Believe or not, there are people who envy, even hate, the wealthy. Although they may rationalize their socioeconomically moderate, even poor, lifestyle, they see the wealthy as living the life that they wish that they could live. People, rather they are willing to admit it or not, secretly wish that they were wealthy. If that was not true, there would not be magazines geared to luxury and upscale lifestyle. In addition to that, there would not television programs and reality shows that spotlight the lifestyles of wealthy people.

To many people, wealthy people are like deities. They see wealthy people as living a rarified life, living at a level that very few people are able to live. In their purview, wealthy people do not have to worry about making a budget because they have unlimited discretionary income at their disposal. They know that wealthy people have more infinite avenues regarding lifestyle choices than they would conceivably have. Although they rationalize their more moderate lifestyle, subconsciously they are unhappy that their socioeconomic lifestyle provides limited lifestyle options.

In addition to this envy, there is hatred of the wealthy among some people. They see the wealthy as having clout and infuence whereas they have none. They also view the wealthy as having a sense of power and ownership over their lives while they are at the mercy of societal elements. They believe that the wealthy also have opportunities that they and their associates will never have.

They contend that the wealthy will never have to worry about socioeconomic outturns, upturns, and/or downturns whereas if something happens, it is THEY who will be affected. In their estimation, their socioeconomic situation is precarious at best and perilous at worst. They feel is if they are navigating a socioeconomic tightrope while the wealthy have it made in the shade.

If they are middle class, they view the wealthy as causing the demise of their class by continuously outsourcing their jobs or downsizing, even eliminating their jobs. They see the wealthy as the worst enemy to the middle class, causing them to become poorer, even the upper lower class. They feel the wealthy as unattuned to and unconcerned with their feelings and predictament. They maintain that the wealthy are a bunch of selfish, out of touch elitists who could care less about them.

There are a few who hate the wealthy because they are socioeconomically living below water, just barely ekeing out an existence. They contend that why should there be wealthy people why they are struggling to live at a subsistent level. They see the wealthy as living a life which they deem to be excessive, even extravagant. They are quite overwhelmed and powerless, even angry, regarding their socioeconomic situation. Simultaneously, they feel that if they had some of that wealth, their lives would be a.......little, if not much, easier. They hate the wealthy because the latter have such a sweeter life while their life if one can it that is a constant purgatorial existence.

In our society, success and attainment of wealth is encouraged within certain limits. The pursuit and attainment of wealth is oftentimes against the paradigm of the middle class lifestyle. There are those who view the pursuit and attainment of wealth as bordering on the obsessive, if not excessive. Highly ambitious and successful people are oftentimes demonized, thought of having a void in their lives.

Our society has a cult of averageness, particularly socioeconomic averageness. This explains why the middle class is viewed as the idea class in our society. The middle class is considered to be somewhat wealthy but not in a threatening way. People who are interested in wealthy are viewed as materialistic, even greedy. It is commonly thought why have more than what is considered to be enough. Then there are religious inculcations that state that the pursuit of wealth is evil.

The wealthy are envied, even hated because they have the lifestyle which others wish that they had although the latter are quite hesitant to acknowledge this. Many people who rationalize their moderate, even poor, socioeconomic status, are unhappy that they have limited lifestyle choices and options. They are also fearful of the precarious socioeconomic climate. If the socioeconomic situation changes for the worse, they would be in even worse socioeconomically. Many people's outlooks and purviews regarding wealth actually influence and preclude them not to pursue wealth thus remaining in a socioeconomic state beset with struggle.