Wealth can be a tool for investment, for development and even for change.
But wealth can also be an end in itself—a status symbol, a way of wielding power, and even an addiction. That was the case for Sam Polk, a former hedge fund manager.
In his last year on Wall Street, Polk earned a $3.6 million bonus. But, he says it wasn't enough.
Today on The Takeaway, Polk explores why Americans love and possibly have an addiction to money.
"It is a sickness," says Polk. "The idea that wealth is an addiction is a really scary one because we actually exist in a culture where there's no consequences. We live in a culture that promotes this wealth addiction. The bigger that addiction gets, the more adulation, the more support, the more TV articles, the more radio interviews people get. That's really the scary thing."
Polk says that many view Wall Street with a lot of anger—they see bankers as evil individuals consumed with greed. He says that the super rich have an addiction and should be viewed as individuals that are "spiritually sick." He adds that the super rich often feel, despite their mass wealth accumulation, that they don't have enough—leading them to constantly seek out more and further worsening their addiction.
When viewing the issue through that lens, Polk says that the issue of rising inequality should be looked at as a function of sickness that stems from an addiction to money and wealth.
"We're existing in a world right now where people at the bottom don't have enough and wages for the last 30 years haven't gone up at all, and still the people at the top feel like they don't have enough," he says. Polk says that he saw this addiction to wealth when he was on Wall Street, with some of his colleagues making upwards of $5 million and still not feeling satisfied.
"While this idea of the American dream is really important, I also think this idea of a connected America is really important—where people feel responsibility for the people that have less than them," says Polk. "The structure of our system, where we're encouraging these people to go out for themselves on a purely selfish basis so they can get more and more is scary."
Polk compares money and addiction to a body building addiction.
"[There are] these huge guys with all these muscles and they're working out 10 hours a day so they can just get another five pounds. That's what Wall Street is like," says Polk. "These guys have it made—I had it made. But once you have it made, there needs to be this idea where you look around at the people below you and say 'I have a responsibility to these people.'"
The show is a co-production of WNYC Radio and Public Radio International, in collaboration with New York Times Radio and WGBH Boston.
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Comments [14]
Yo mark from dallas. Libertarianism is idealistic and makes us isolationists.
To quote the late great george carlin:
"One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is "Libertarian." People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable, and to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it's just one more bullshit political philosophy."-carlin
People like ron and rand paul are worthless when it comes to real policy. They're simply career politicians complaining that there are too many career politicans. Its irony, hypocrisy, anf idiocy all rolled into one.
If one looks at this 85 individuals/ half the planet ratio for wealth, it would seem that this situation doesn't even seem to add up to a good exploitation paradigm of the resource. If I were a "bazillionaire", I'd much rather nurture a planet in which there was a secure population that could not only afford to buy my high end products and services, but could "educate" their offspring, to continue that trend at an even higher level of return for me. Your contributor is spot on, it is a disease.
Not to make this guy feel overly bad -- but he worked (or whatever the active verb is for that activity) at a hedge fund and made $3 million? Isn't that how much waiters at hedge funds make in a night? If you don't have at least a liquid $10 million, as this guy well knows, you can't get a real wall streeter to sneeze on you.
"The people below you."
what a dope. As in: "I didn't hit that dope in the face, officer! It was my 'hit the dope in the face' addiction.'"
$3.6 million as a bonus? My God. Most of us make 1% of that per annum.
If the pursuit of wealth is addiction so the the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of progressivism or philanthropy. I'm 50 and not wealthy and the best thing I did was give my kids free minds, no religions of priests or politicians. If we survive, humanity will mature into free thought, reason, and libertarianism. Of course that's scary to believers, especially progressive believers since their fundamentalists have killed the most the past century. Belief is addiction.
Frank Norris wrote a great book called "McTeague," it was also turned into a movie called, "Greed."
Fantastic stuff about money and hoarding it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40KOxkqh1u4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McTeague
I think Polk is working hard to understand his addiction to money and should be cut a break.
So if we eat the super-rich, will we become infected with their disease of wealth addiction? Maybe it will ok as long as we make sure they are well-cooked.
Ed, meh, he should give us some of his money. Screw it, our representatives do not want to make any reforms to wall street or the banking system, and no changing our currency to gold is not a solution, so we might as well start pushing redistribution of wealth. give us the money of our oppressors.
too socialist for some of the conservatives? well, conservatives, you should not have used the system to promote that specific type of exploitation and corruption but ya did, so give us our money back.
when somebody robs you there should be justice. these people that live in this world where money is not enough - these psychopaths, it's time they are put in a prison and we use the money they stole to rebuild our society that has been destroyed by the idea that we can make money off of war. or that it's alright to be so rich that all you need to make money is more money. that's exploitation. straight up. shouldn't be legal. we should quit coddling these people simply because they have large quantities of currency hidden in banks across the world. it'd be one thing if our countries populace showed signs of upward mobility, but well, that hasn't happened since the 40's-50's. back when unions were not seen as evil but seen as a way for humans to get a fair wage without breaking their back and some security for their families.
worker run, worker owned companies. it's the only way to fix this. they should have done it with the car companies in Detroit.
I love how he just "dropped" his nonprofit into the conversation in a completely anti-organic manner. It just plopped in and the host stopped to give him another egotistic platform.
Read more about this Sam Polk. He is an ego in search of acclaim.
A wealthy dude talking about his unhappiness while he sits upon piles of money? Give me a break.
He is vapid and has NOTHING meaningful to say. He should stick to writing because he talks like a teenager.
Ugh. Stop giving this jack*ss a platform.
agree Peg. Greed, The reason for the collapse of every massive empire in the history. with few exceptions.
Greed is not only a sin it's a very severe and addictive Hoarding Disease.
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