Jonathan: "Bill Gates' parents were politically connected lawyers. His sin against Wealth was not technology, but the mere fact that he went to Harvard Business School, albeit he dropped out. Harvard is a Class Conscious place to be sure (my Dad went there, I could tell sories), but B-School? The rich pretend not to care about money. To openly study business is terribly Middle-Class and disgusting to them."
Ah, where to start. First, only his father was a lwayer, not his mother. He did not go to Harvard B-School, as has already been noted. Yours is not the only father who went to Harvard. {cough} And if B-School is regarded as so repulsive by the rich, it would be a surprise to the family of a certain alum of Harvard's B-School, from 1975.
"Science is not anathema to the Rich. Quite to contrary, 19th century science depended on The Independent Man of Leisure puttering about."
This is notably not the same age as 150 years ago.
"Emperor Hirohito was a marine biologist."
Who isn't American.
"The Rothschilds had some notable naturalists."
Who aren't American.
"The Rockefellers explore a lot of remote places (Borneo, Amazonia)."
Ah, here we're finally getting somewhere. I will grant that the Romantic view of Nature can sometimes trump other concerns. But how many papers have come out of these explorations, exactly? (And of that number, how many were not ghost written?)
"Larry Niven has told me in detail about his parent's initial disdain for his professionalism. It wasn't Caltech they dislkiked, it was writing Science Fiction -- for MONEY! he won them over, but that's another story. His family is the Doheny family, who became rich by discovering oil in Los Angeles. They have advanced to the newer edge of Old Money now. Politics? It was a Doheny who caused the Teapot Dome scandal!"
Oddly, you're not the only friend of Larry's in the sound of your voice. Again, {cough}. So I already knew all this. (Larry and I went to boarding schools in the same athletic league -- he {strike}Mt. Lookithat{/strike} Cate, myself Midland.)
But the point wasn't the reaction of his family as much as the reaction of his class.
I will skip the rest not addressed to me, save for two items:
"The INDUSTRIES listed include people making in the $20,000-$30,000 per annum range, but those people are the support staff, not the professionals as such."
Depends on where. This is true in the larger coastal cities, but I personally know both professors and lawyers with incomes in this range.
"My figures are from "The Millionaire Next Door" -- a fascinating breakthrough academic study, with copious statistics. Millionaires are completely UNLIKE the stereotypess ("How to Marry a Millionaire")."
Yes. I'm sure Sir Humphrey would call Millionaire Next Door "bold, imaginative, and innovative."
The problem is, after having gathered some data, the authors then get prescriptive, and manage to forget that correlation does not equal causation, and that such a thing as survivorship bias exists. In other words, they don't go back and find out how many people have exactly the same traits they describe, yet never managed to become millionaires. (Jim Collins also tends to get this wrong as well.)
Perhaps a better book is Fooled by Randomness, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Taleb is a follower of Popper, and tends to look for more objective, falsifiable criteria.
OK, I was wrong, there's one other thing: Bill Jr.'s law firm, Preston Gates Ellis, is the largest for a 700 mile radius. It didn't start that way, obviously, and I realize compared to NY law firms it's not all that grand... But if you don't think the senior partner is "upper class" in the relevant region...
Well. Yes.
Dave: "The most famous public disagreement between Bill and his father is that the latter opposed repeal of the estate tax."
Not according to USAToday, in a quickly found search. Nor in any other press report I've seen. Do you have personal knowledge, or a citation available?
(I note that the Chief Software Architect of Microsoft is William H. Gates III, so presumably his father was born William H. Gates, Jr... Yet, these days, the elder Gates goes by "Bill Gates, Sr." Thus, by implication, both Gateses are taking the names of their fathers. I'm sure it'll be a great psych thesis for someone someday. :)
Terry (and Xopher): Yeah, I don't understand why LJ isn't considered a "real" blog by so many... especially since my Friends List works better than any RSS reader I've found to date, when it comes to doing what I want to do (full-text, interleaved). "Normal" blogs are just so brain-damaged, to me, when it comes to their interfaces.
But then, I thought the same about BBS-based .QWK mail, compared to either CompuServe and its ilk, or Usenet. And web based fora just aren't even the same sport, usability-wise.
*^*^*
Jonathan: The problem is, money does not equal class in this country.
The best works I'm aware of on the subject are Paul Fussell's Class (which he now insists was a quasi-parody); Nelson Aldrich's Old Money; and Lewis Lapham's Money and Class In America.
Put it to you this way: It's cheap enough to subscribe to The Atlantic, or the Hudson Review, or Foreign Affairs. Wanting to, on other hand, is something that comes about much more through class than through money. Or being horrified when seeing "prole gap" at the back of someone's coat.
Collegiate or university academics have always been a good example of how class has little to do with money per se -- they're much classier than their income would suggest.
Also, having any sort of an interest in science makes one déclassé in some circles. Looked at this way, Bill Gates' (or Larry Niven's) great sin against his class isn't his money, but that he made it through that grubby technology.
Being willing to go to art museums, whether they have modern art or not. To my mind, the whole point of modern art is to keep hoi polloi uninterested. Which is why so much of it is bad as art, but performs its function perfectly.
"Be not afraid."
...the island is full of noises.
Whoops. Wrong play.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 5 |
Total: 5 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Hal O'Brien:
Show all comments by Hal O'Brien.