Based on the work of Robert Sapolsky, the dominance of society by alphas cause the have-nots to suffer stressed-induced deteriorating health. When those alphas died off due to eating tainted meat, the entire troupe benefited, becoming more social and gentle. Fascinating findings that appear to apply to humans too.
Are rich people jerks? We need to be careful before generalizing, but some recent studies suggest that being monied tends correlate with insensitivity to the needs of others. There are many exceptions to the rules, of course. Many wealthy people dedicate their lives to helping the poor or the politically oppressed. The tendency is the opposite, however. Another caveat is the direction of causation: Is it that the money corrupts or is it that the type of people who obsess about their own material cravings tend to accumulate more money. Here's an excerpt from an article by Joshua Holland at Moyers & Company (A Plutocracy Ruled by Self-Centered Jerks?"):
In one telling experiment, the researchers observed a busy intersection, and found that drivers of luxury cars were more likely to cut off other drivers and less likely to stop for pedestrians crossing the street than those behind the wheels of more modest vehicles. “In our crosswalk study, none of the cars in the beater-car category drove through the crosswalk,” Piff told The New York Times. “But you see this huge boost in a driver’s likelihood to commit infractions in more expensive cars.” He added: “BMW drivers are the worst.”
Summing up previous research on the topic, Piff notes that upper-class individuals also “showed reduced sensitivity to others’ suffering” as compared with working- and middle-class people.
Lower-class individuals are more likely to spend time taking care of others, and they are more embedded in social networks that depend on mutual aid. By contrast, upper-class individuals prioritize independence from others: They are less motivated than lower-class individuals to build social relationships and instead seek to differentiate themselves from others.
Shame on those many American tax evaders, those who we euphemistically say are "investing offshore." Here are some stunning facts and figures, from the Tax Justice Network:
The very existence of the global offshore industry, and the tax free status of the enormoussumsinvestedbytheirwealthyclients,ispredicatedonsecrecy:that is what this industry really “supplies” as it competes for, conceals, and manages private capital from all over the planet, from any and all sources, no questions asked. We are up against one of society's most well entrenched interest groups. After all, there’s no interest group more rich and powerful than the rich and powerful, who are the ultimate subjects of our research.
"The numbers in this Alternet article are shocking. We are well on our way to having a country of very poor Americans ruled over by very rich Americans. Some would say, what are you proposing, COMMUNISM? No, just end the current corporate communism (privatized profits, socialized risks). We need go back to something like the tax codes of prior decades, and consider the other suggestions in the above article as well as the basic principles announced by Dylan Ratigan in his famous rant. Why should it matter to those who are still reasonably well off that there is a stark growing divide between rich and poor Americans? Because social science has demonstrated the clear correlation between income inequality and societal dysfunction.
I've seen the numbers over the past few years, but this short video really brings it home.