There are big questions in life.
Where do we come from?
What is consciousness?
Why do socks vanish in the dryer?
And—America’s favorite philosophical puzzle, asked with the breathless enthusiasm of a late-night true crime host—are rich people just… worse?
Not morally complex, not ethically ambiguous.
Worse.
As in: are the people with luxury SUVs, artisanal dog spas, and kitchen islands larger than studio apartments secretly powered by mean-spirited impulses and a desire to use the rest of us as emotionally charged speed bumps?
It’s a question that resurfaces every time a billionaire decides to tweet, which is the fastest way to confirm that wealth doesn’t buy wisdom, humility, or even basic sentence structure. We wonder again when an heiress insults someone in an interview, or when a CEO announces layoffs in the same breath as a new stock buyback. And we wonder anew when we see a private jet parked next to another private jet, both being refueled so the owners can fly to a conference about climate sustainability.
It’s not just envy. It’s not just frustration. It’s sheer human curiosity.
Does wealth change people?
Or does it simply remove the polite varnish that hid who they already were?
Grab a drink.
This is going to be long, chaotic, and deeply entertaining.
Chapter 1: The Great Paradox—Rich People Say They’re “Blessed,” But Everyone Else Says “Run.”
Let’s start by stating the obvious: rich people adore describing themselves as blessed. Not lucky, not advantaged—blessed. As if the universe looked down, said “You know who deserves eight houses? The person who made networking their entire personality.”
Meanwhile, the rest of society looks up at the same group and thinks:
Something is off. Something is… energetically suspicious.
Why do we think rich people might be meaner?
Maybe because the evidence keeps presenting itself like a cat dragging dead birds onto the porch in hopes that you’ll finally acknowledge the pattern.
Think of the super-wealthy person who refuses to tip, the celebrity who screams at waitstaff, the hedge fund manager who takes personal offense at the idea of paying taxes, or the tech CEO who explains poverty by saying, “Well, some people just don’t want it enough.”
There’s a reason these caricatures exist.
Caricatures don’t spontaneously appear. Something somewhere is being traced.
But science has also entered the conversation, because when normal people gossip, it’s petty, but when researchers gossip, it gets funding.
And the research is… fascinating.
Chapter 2: Studies Have Entered the Chat—And They’re Not Subtle
One of the most famous experiments in this arena involved a rigged game of Monopoly. The researchers gave one person a giant advantage: more money, more opportunities, more movement. And guess what?
The advantaged players immediately developed:
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A sense of superiority
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A belief that they earned their dominance
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A tendency to snack more aggressively
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A mysterious inability to notice their own privilege
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And a sudden fondness for lecturing the disadvantaged player about strategy
You know—a personality arc that mirrors the daily moral weather of a mid-tier private equity executive.
Another study found that drivers of expensive cars were far more likely to:
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Cut off other drivers
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Ignore pedestrians in crosswalks
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Pretend stop signs are optional decorations
Basically, the wealthier the car, the more the driver behaved like the laws of physics were just mild suggestions.
And then there’s the research showing that people with higher incomes tend to donate less of their income proportionally. Not always, but consistently enough to be a trend. When donations do increase, it’s often because:
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The event has black-tie catering
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The donor gets a building named after them
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A camera crew is nearby
What a coincidence!
But here’s where things get complicated.
Rich people aren’t a monolith.
Some are generous. Some are kind. Some rescue puppies on the weekend and cry silently at environmental documentaries.
So why does the stereotype persist?
Chapter 3: Money Doesn’t Change You—It Changes the Level of Consequences You Face
When middle-class people misbehave, something happens. It’s called repercussions.
When rich people misbehave, something also happens. It’s called absolutely nothing.
This is not a character judgment. This is an environmental observation. Humans adapt to the worlds they live in. If your world is one where:
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The rules don’t apply
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“No” is treated as a clerical error
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Mistakes are erased by assistants
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Other people absorb the fallout
…you tend to evolve a certain personality style.
If you’ve never had a job you could be fired from, you see consequences as myths.
If you’ve never feared a medical bill, you see safety nets as luxuries.
If you’ve never had to choose between rent and groceries, you assume everyone else could “just budget better.”
Wealth can slowly strip away the friction that shapes empathy.
Most people learn kindness because reality makes them.
Rich people often learn kindness only if they choose to.
And many do!
But many don’t.
Because self-awareness is an elective class, not a requirement.
Chapter 4: The Psychology of Being on Top—A.K.A. Why People With a Safety Net Sometimes Assume Everyone Has One
Picture yourself on a ladder.
Now imagine that the ladder extends infinitely below you.
You don’t see the bottom.
You don’t see the people climbing.
You don’t see the strain or the sweat or the slipping.
You only see the sky.
That is what extreme wealth can be like.
If you were born at the top of the ladder, you may not realize that other people don’t have rungs. You may not even realize ladders exist.
And so you say things like:
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“Anyone can succeed!”
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“Failure is a choice!”
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“People are poor because they don’t work hard!”
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“I didn’t inherit anything except opportunity, stability, safety, connections, education, real estate, capital, and a nine-figure trust fund.”
Empathy requires context.
If someone grows up without exposure to struggle, their “default assumptions about humanity” can end up shaped by a fantasy world.
And unfortunately, fantasy worlds often produce fantasy morals.
Chapter 5: The Social Distance Problem—Or Why Wealth Buys Isolation More Effectively Than Solitude
Here’s a subtle truth: the more money you have, the fewer uncomfortable social experiences you are forced to endure.
You can avoid:
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Public transportation
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Crowded grocery stores
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Customer service lines
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Working with people who terrify you
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Bosses who don’t respect you
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Neighbors you didn’t choose
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Schools with broken AC units
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Doctors who take forever
Do you know what these shared experiences do?
They create community. They generate perspective. They force people to recognize one another’s humanity.
Money can be used to eliminate friction, but friction is where empathy lives.
So the result is social isolation—not always physical, but emotional.
From isolation comes misunderstanding.
From misunderstanding comes self-importance.
From self-importance comes a worldview where other people become props instead of peers.
And that’s where meanness can sneak in—not necessarily intentional, but ambient, like secondhand smoke.
Chapter 6: The Myth of the Benevolent Elite—A Beautiful Story With… Limited Supporting Evidence
We all know the narrative:
The wealthy are society’s visionaries.
The wealthy are the job creators.
The wealthy are the philanthropists.
The wealthy are the engine of innovation.
This story is comforting.
It reassures the middle class that the system is moral.
It reassures the wealthy that they deserve their position.
It reassures politicians that the donors are the heroes.
But every myth works only until someone checks the receipts.
Plenty of wealthy individuals do generous things. Some fund scholarships. Some donate large sums. Some advocate for justice. Some genuinely care.
But the idea of the wealthy as a class being kinder, wiser, or more altruistic?
No.
History laughs in 2000 years of receipts.
Many rich people are kind as individuals.
But wealth as a system does not select for kindness—it selects for opportunity, position, and insulation.
And insulation is the enemy of compassion.
Chapter 7: The Billionaire Brain—Same Hardware, Different Software
Biology doesn’t change when someone hits a certain net worth. Neurons don’t rearrange into a new shape.
But the software they run?
Oh, that gets updated.
Picture this operating system:
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Default setting: personal convenience
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Error message: “Someone else will handle it”
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Virus protection: “That didn’t affect me, so it must not be a problem”
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Energy saver mode: “Why should I care?”
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Power mode: “Who’s going to stop me?”
The rewiring emerges because wealth can reduce incentives to consider others. When discomfort is rare, empathy becomes a skill instead of a reflex.
And humans rarely practice skills they don’t need.
Want empathy? Climb down from the penthouse and spend quality time with reality.
Chapter 8: But Wait—Some Rich People Are Angels. Why?
Yes, absolutely. Some wealthy individuals are extraordinary humans.
Some are generous, gentle, thoughtful, community-minded, and compassionate.
Why?
Three reasons:
1. They remember what struggle feels like.
People who earned their wealth often retain the memory of scarcity.
Even if their bank account forgets, their nervous system remembers.
2. They stayed connected to normal people.
They didn’t isolate.
They didn’t self-select into a world of infinite cushions.
They kept friends who earn normal salaries.
They kept hobbies that don’t require yacht maintenance.
3. They actively work against the psychological drift that money creates.
Kindness becomes a discipline.
Not an accident.
But here’s the important part:
These exceptions prove the rule.
If kindness were the default outcome of wealth, empathy wouldn’t require effort.
Chapter 9: The Moral Mirage—Why People Think the Rich Must Be Better
There’s a reason society romanticizes the wealthy.
We confuse outcomes with virtue.
If someone is rich, we often assume:
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They must be smart
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They must be hardworking
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They must be deserving
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They must know something we don’t
It’s comforting to believe that success is correlated with goodness.
It helps us sleep at night.
But money isn’t a moral scorecard.
It’s just a resource—powerful, flexible, and indifferent.
Confusing wealth with virtue is like confusing height with kindness.
Tall people are not inherently nicer. They just reach things on higher shelves.
Chapter 10: The Truth—No, the Rich Are Not Uniquely Evil… But the System They Live In Rewards Behaviors That Look That Way
The verdict is nuanced:
No, the wealthy are not inherently meaner.
They do not have defective empathy circuits.
They are not a different species.
But are they more likely to engage in behaviors that look selfish?
Yes.
Why?
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Fewer consequences
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More insulation
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Reduced exposure to hardship
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Increased power
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Greater ability to bypass norms
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Access to systems that reward aggressive behavior
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Less practice with discomfort
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Social circles that reinforce entitlement
This doesn’t make them villains.
It makes them human beings reacting to their environment.
If you put anyone in a world with unlimited cushions, unlimited buffers, unlimited insulation, and unlimited validation, their psychology shifts.
Some resist the drift.
Many don’t.
Chapter 11: The Final Answer—But Let's Make It Fun
So, are the rich really more selfish and mean?
Here’s the most accurate formulation:
Wealth doesn’t automatically make people worse.
But it removes nearly every natural obstacle that keeps the rest of humanity tolerable.
You know how some people turn into monsters when they get a small amount of power?
Give that same psychological cocktail billions of dollars, zero limits, a team of assistants, and a private jet, and you get a personality that can bulldoze through social norms like they’re made of tissue paper.
Most people don’t become unkind because they’re bad.
They become unkind because nothing around them stops it from happening.
The miracle isn’t that some rich people behave badly.
The miracle is that some stay good despite having every opportunity not to.
Chapter 12: What This Means for the Rest of Us
The conclusion isn’t “hate the rich.”
That’s too easy, too simplistic, and frankly too unproductive.
The conclusion is this:
Wealth should come with guardrails.
Not because rich people are inherently mean,
but because humans are inherently human.
Systems matter.
Environments matter.
Incentives matter.
Boundaries matter.
When we design a world where wealth can grow without restraint, we shouldn’t be shocked that ego does the same.
Want kinder elites?
Build structures that encourage empathy.
Want more generous leaders?
Normalize accountability.
Want less entitlement?
Increase connection.
Decrease insulation.
Everything else is noise.
Epilogue: Humanity Has Range—And So Does Wealth
Money doesn’t create kindness or cruelty.
It amplifies what’s already there, and it removes the gravity that normally keeps human behavior grounded.
It doesn’t make people better.
It doesn’t make people worse.
It just makes people more… themselves.
But when “yourself” includes the ability to reshape the lives of thousands—or millions—every character flaw becomes a public event.
The rich are not uniquely mean.
They are uniquely unrestrained.
And that, dear reader, is the real story.