Women who stayed at home were sometimes more conflicted about this, consistent with their distance from paid work. Lucy’s husband hated the idea of raising taxes on high earners. But she was ambivalent: “I think I feel a little bit more conflicted about it, I have to say. I don’t think anybody wants to be taxed more. I do think that taxes support good projects and good programs. I guess I’m more conflicted about it than he is. I really am.” Though Alice’s husband did not trust the state to use “his” money well, Alice herself was more pro-tax, arguing that “not everyone is going to” give away what her husband would give.
In contrast, downward-oriented people tended to see taxes as a form of giving back analogous to charitable giving, especially when they were inheritors and hence less connected to discourses of earning. Nadine herself mused, “I wish more rich people felt like it was their job to give back, you know? Everyone I know feels like, ‘Oh, it’s so heinous how much we get taxed.’ Because I know people in that top income bracket. And it is pretty brutal. I mean, you know, you basically—I mean, it’s like, the death tax is … it’s like, more than a third.20 Well over a third, right? Forty percent. But I just feel like, ‘Yeah. Okay, that makes sense to me.’ You know, it kind of sucks come tax time, and sometimes it hurts. But what do you expect, you know? You have more, you give more. I just feel like, that’s common sense, to me. I don’t understand people who feel like that’s not.”
As this stance suggests, these downward-oriented people were also less suspicious of the state. Danielle, who described herself as “pretty far left,” said, “I think socially the government has an obligation to people, and that if you have more, you should give more, and you should pay more taxes. And I think that as a culture we can’t spread it equally, so we need the government to do it largely for us.” Miriam likewise defended the government’s role when she said, “I actually totally believe in taxes. I think that I should pay more taxes. … Sometimes I get really annoyed with people in the city who are always, like, complaining about taxes and complaining about the subway and this or that. I’m like, you know what, the subway’s pretty fucking awesome. It’s really amazing. There’s problems with this and that, but mostly it runs, and it takes you from here to there, and it’s fast, and it’s, you know, reasonably clean. It’s efficient. And someone has to pay for all this shit, right? So you buy your tokens and there’s city subsidies and all this stuff. Someone needs to plow your streets. I totally believe in taxes, and I don’t—I’m fine with paying more taxes.”
Specific tax policies did shape charitable giving, however, even for more liberal people. Talia said, “I mean, we donate to like, public radio. We give to our alma maters. I would say probably ten to twenty [thousand dollars per year]. And again, the tax benefit is also nice.” Nadine said, suggesting that the amount of her and her partner’s charitable giving was determined by the desire to avoid taxes, “Our charitable gift fund offsets capital gains [tax]. So there are years we’ve given away twenty thousand, and there’s years we’ve given away five.” Tax preparation also influenced the timing of giving, as some people made annual charitable contributions when they were thinking about their taxes. Wendy justified her fairly small donations with reference to the lack of a tax benefit. She told me, “We do [give money away], but I struggle with that, it’s not enough, like, given what we have, I think I’m probably supposed to be giving away more. … Part of it is, is like, I don’t get any benefit from our taxes, which pisses me off. Like, somehow—and I don’t understand taxes well enough—but we would have to give away a lot more in order for it to be above a minimum where we start to get some credit for the itemized deductions.”
Tax policy also shaped decisions about transferring money in families with multigenerational wealth. Even progressives, who advocated higher taxes for the wealthy in general, took advantage of rules permitting untaxed annual gifts under a certain amount from older generations to younger ones as a way to minimize estate taxes when the older relatives die. Similarly, grandparents often paid for the private schools of their grandchildren (this was common in the families of those I interviewed) as a way of passing on wealth without paying taxes. Sara, who otherwise believed in paying taxes, called this practice “just good estate planning.”
GIVING BACK OR GIVING UP?
Most of the people I talked with resembled wealthy people who have been studied by other researchers, for whom giving back does not challenge structural inequalities in any way. These are people who mostly have faith in the system, as Frances asserts in the opening quote (“I do believe in a market economy”). They acknowledge disparity but take it as given—beyond the control, and thus the responsibility, of the beneficiary. Monica told me, “I don’t ever feel guilt [about people with less]. Because I didn’t necessarily personally put them there.” She also recounted, of a lesson she had learned from her mother,
I remember [when I was] growing up, and I was saying to my friend, “Oh, I can’t believe this, people live on the side of the highway.” My mother was like, “Well, they can’t afford to live in the suburbs. That’s what they can have. And they’re happy about it, that’s what they have.” And that has always stuck with me. You know? It’s like, you do the best you can do, and it’s going to be better than some, and it’s going to be less than others. But it’s good. And someone’s going to have it better than you, and somebody’s going to have it worse than you. Just have what you have.
Warren commented, “You know, I’m not like, ‘People shouldn’t get help.’ Like, ‘No welfare.’ You’re dealing with a society where no one has figured out how to deal with scarce resources, and no one has quite figured out the best way to allocate things. And so yes, you’re in a situation where you’re enjoying more than, you know, the less fortunate in our society. But it seems like that’s part of the system we’re living in, so why not enjoy it if you can?” For these donors, giving time and money often ends up consolidating their privileged position, especially because their philanthropy supports institutions that benefit them, such as schools.
But many downward-oriented people I spoke with, like Nadine, critiqued the system from which they benefit. Their giving reflected these critiques, as they often supported organizations advocating gender, race, and economic justice. They knew such giving was unlikely to lead to major change, but it was not clear what else they could do to challenge inequality.21 Miriam said, “Is the division of income in society fucked up? Absolutely. And do we value the wrong things? Absolutely. So you know, what I get [paid] is ridiculous. And then, if you think about, like, a teacher or people who are like giving a ton—a firefighter, right—I mean, they’re not making anywhere near as much. … And you know, that is crazy. But where I feel most guilty is sort of with regard to people who just really aren’t getting by.” For this reason, she said, she mostly donated to organizations in New York that served people struggling to survive. “But,” she continued, “I definitely feel guilty, and I try to assuage some of that by giving. But I don’t know what else I can do.”
When Kate, Nadine’s partner, mentioned “giving back,” I said, “A lot of people say that, and I’m never exactly sure what it means. Give back what, and to whom?” In response, she first invoked awareness. She said, “Well, I think for me what I mean is that I do know that it’s extraordinarily random and lucky that I am in this situation. I didn’t earn the money that is coming to my house, and the money that pays for my mortgage comes from somebody who works and [bought the family company’s product]. … So the money that’s paying my mortgage is somebody else’s salary, and I am aware of that.” Kate continued, “So in the larger system I think the whole thing is quite unfair, that because we have assets we have income, and that we don’t have to work. You know, I realize that. And there’s nobody to give that back to, unless we sort of get rid of capitalism, you know? But I do think that we have an obligation to support charities and be charitable. To sort of not, I don’t know, not spend our money on frivolous things and to gi
ve money to people and causes that we think need it.”
Kate’s answer outlines the structural problem she and Nadine face—that their possession of assets allows them economic freedom and that those assets come directly from the earnings of people who do have to work. But, she says, “there’s nobody to give that back to” under our current system. There is no such thing as “giving back” that actually solves the structural problem. Instead Kate highlights all the aspects of legitimate privilege I have described—earning, not spending frivolously, being “charitable,” and being aware. For the most part, these progressives “give up” on making systemic change. As individuals, this is the best they can do.22
Or is it? One thing they could do would be to take “giving back” to an extreme by giving all their money away and/or devoting all their time to activism.23 Giving it all away was an option a few of the most progressive people had considered but ultimately discounted. Gary said, “I’ve learned a lot about humility in the last ten years. And part of my humility is to think that I could give away all my money, and it wouldn’t make a dent in the world. It just wouldn’t. For five minutes, it might change the life of one organization.” He also alluded to appreciating the “benefits to financial security” for his family. He said, “In the case of my family, I don’t feel I have the right to make decisions about poverty, or well-being, for my kids and their kids. Because I had the privilege of making the choice. I don’t feel I have the privilege of making the choice for them.” Others who had contemplated this option (or giving away larger amounts than they did) also referred to the long-term consequences for their own children and grandchildren.
Needing to protect against risk was important as well. Vera, who did not have children and lived a frugal lifestyle, felt very guilty about her inherited wealth. But when I asked if she had considered giving it away, she responded, “Well, I’m scared in this country. Because you have one illness, it’s gone. You know, you can’t count on—so I give some away. I feel like, one illness, I’d be done. So I’m trying to preserve myself.” She contrasted the United States unfavorably to European welfare states, which guaranteed at least that “everybody eats.”
Eliana believed that she could have used her privilege to the advantage of others if she had become a “superactivist,” perhaps in education. She said, “So, if I were to give my whole life to that, I maybe could make a little impact on education, in some way, in some city. Never mind all the other things I also think are really important. So I couldn’t fix everything. But I could give everything I have to fixing. Instead of giving a lot of what I have to making sure my child is, you know, especially privileged.” But, she said, she had made a number of decisions along the course of her life, including having children, that steered her away from that possibility. And she was unwilling to give up certain comforts (recall that she had joked, “I was gonna be a revolutionary, and then I had that first massage”). Finally, she commented, “the older I get, the more and more discouraged I get, about making an individual difference.”
For the younger inheritors I interviewed,24 who did not have children and who were active in extremely progressive circles, these possibilities were less remote. Yvette was an activist in her early thirties who had recently inherited over $10 million dollars. She had almost immediately given away about a quarter of the total and was thinking seriously about giving away most of the rest. She said, “I think my idea continues to be, give the majority of it away, and do the best I can at thinking about ‘In this world, what piece am I going to keep as a safety net?’” She was critical of social messages about potential risk that made people feel they had to hoard their assets, and she was trying to figure out a way to feel secure while also learning to develop and rely on a broader community. She worked full-time in a nonprofit for very low pay and hoped to live on her salary. But I wondered how this might change if she decided to have children.
John, a young activist with wealth who did not have children yet but hoped to, differentiated between charitable “giving” and “redistributing,” which meant giving more of one’s wealth away. He called this a “real debate among progressives and radicals.” John had decided that rather than giving away a radical proportion of his wealth, he would use his philanthropic access to influence more progressive change. He said, “I think that using the access and the privilege that I have to be able to say things in circles that other people can’t get into is actually very valuable. My friends and peers who are doing grassroots community organizing who can’t get into conversations with communities of wealth, I can on their behalf. As long as I keep the conversation [connected] with them, not saying only what I’m thinking up in my head but what we’re developing together, that’s actually a valuable thing to do. And,” he concluded, “it also lets me still have money and go travel and have a nice house.” Ultimately, John said, “What I often say is that if you choose not to give everything away, you’re choosing to have some level of discomfort on an ongoing basis. If you have belief in equity and equality but choose to have a lifestyle with wealth in it.”
Giving back, like working hard and consuming prudently, involves emotion, disposition, and behavior. It means feeling aware and appreciative, being “nice” to others, and, to different extents, giving time and money. These practices and affects are publicly visible to varying degrees. Awareness in particular is private—it keeps privilege visible to the privileged individual herself without necessarily making it visible to others. Actually donating time and money is often, though not always, more public. The publicness of my interviewees’ identities as wealthy people affects how they choose to contribute.
Regardless of how they give back, the people I interviewed do not “give up” anything of material significance; their giving, even in large amounts, does not diminish their own comforts. An architect I interviewed described a wealthy liberal couple who were his clients: “They’re the kind of people that don’t pass a homeless person without giving him ten dollars. They just feel guilty about having so much, in a world where people don’t. They’re politically active, and this and that and the other thing. And ultimately, yeah, it doesn’t stop them from buying an Armani outfit. … They don’t deprive themselves of anything, either. They’re not flying coach.” On the other hand, it is not clear that their giving up more would be morally better.
And “giving back,” in whatever form it takes, ultimately does not lead to broad structural transformation. For most of the people I talked with, this kind of change was not the goal; “giving back” was a less conflicted, more taken-for-granted part of their identities as good people. For those who would have wanted more radical change, it was frustrating not to be able to make it. But ultimately they accepted these limits—an acceptance facilitated by becoming parents and the slow ratcheting up of “needs.”
The legitimately entitled self—hardworking, reasonably consuming, and contributing—is always acting in and constituted by relationships with other people, especially in families. The next two chapters address how these issues of disposition and worth played out in relations with partners and children.
5
LABOR, SPENDING,
AND ENTITLEMENT
IN COUPLES
On a muggy day in June 2013, I drove out to the Hamptons to conduct two interviews, both with stay-at-home mothers. My conversation with the first interviewee, Alexis, began with a discussion of the $400,000 cosmetic renovation she and her husband had done on their summer house. The renovation had been his idea, because he thought it would add value to their home while also making it more pleasant to live in. She had been more inclined to live with the house as it was and wait a few years until they could buy something bigger and better. But he’d prevailed, and she had ultimately spent many months both planning and supervising the renovation.
Alexis loved to shop; as we saw in chapter 3, she was enthralled with a handbag her husband had bought her as a Mother’s Day “treat.” But her passion for shopping caused conflict
with her husband, who tried to rein in her spending. She said, “I wish I could be better at saving more money. That’s the one thing we really fight about. And, like, the credit card bills.” She admitted sheepishly that her husband was right, saying, “I do have a shopping problem.” She was less inclined to agree, however, when her husband gave her a hard time about having “too much” paid labor—a nanny in the mornings and sometimes a babysitter in the evenings. He didn’t understand how much work it was to deal with the kids while he was in the city during the week, and she wanted time to get her “own stuff” done. She confessed that she sometimes hired a babysitter without telling him.
Stephanie, the second woman I interviewed that day, was a stay-at-home mother married to an architect. Like Alexis, she fretted over constraints her husband put on her consumption. She complained that he would buy gourmet food and wine for his friends but give her a hard time for spending on what she saw as necessities for their child and household. She protested that she didn’t spend any money on herself, and she went into detail about how she had saved money renovating their summer home. She also thought her husband failed to understand how much work she did not only taking care of their son but managing their real estate, which included a Manhattan apartment, a summer home on Long Island, and a rental property. Also like Alexis, Stephanie said she had had more control over money when she was earning it herself.
Uneasy Street Page 18