Work and the Wealthy

Among all the misconceptions about the wealthy that are harbored by people in general is the notion that the rich don't work. This odd idea seems to have gained currency in the same way as so many unsound notions about the rich—from Hollywood and from the rare, spectacular examples of international playboys and their ilk. What is, in fact, far more interesting and salient about the rich is how hard they tend to work despite not having any financial need to do so.

This issue of working hard, of being productive and of generating happiness out of that productivity, is perhaps best examined by looking at another example of the phenomenon, namely, the wives⁵ of extremely successful men. Talented men, men who are destined for great success in life (and in this case we include financial success), tend to marry women who are a lot like themselves: talented women who can also look forward to great success in traditional terms. But what often happens is something else altogether. The couple wants to have children. Only the wife can have them, and she is probably (though not certainly) more maternally inclined. Society frowns on men who stay home while their wives work. All these and many other factors dictate that in most cases the wife will stay home with the kids.

Eventually, the last child toddles off to school and now the wife is faced with a question about what to do with her life. Her choices are so wide that it is difficult to know where to begin. And the world is a very different place for her than it was when she was first married. She could launch herself into a traditional career now, when she is probably in her late 30s, but she would be competing against and associating with colleagues who are far younger—not an attractive proposition.

Moreover, although the children are in school during the day, they come home at 3:00 p.m. What's to happen to them then? Who will pick them up, take them to their (increasingly numerous) activities and play dates? Someone could be hired to handle that chore, to be sure—money is no object for these successful families—but is that really the best way to handle it? Already the husband frequently arrives home after the kids are in bed—should the wife really emulate that work schedule?

And what about the wife's social life? That life has been built around a series of friends and activities that aren't constrained by the usual 10-hour professional workday. Should she give up these friends and these activities and start all over again?

Finally, there is the question of financial need. None of the above would matter a whit if the wife's income were crucial to the financial survival of the family. But we have already postulated that the husband can provide all the financial needs. Thus, these women have no financial need to work.

What becomes of this group of women, the talented wives of very successful men? Well, we know what becomes of them, because we all know so many of them. Some launch themselves into demanding careers, becoming every bit as successful, financially and otherwise, as their husbands.

But most of them, by far the great majority, carve out busy and productive lives that don't look like “traditional” successful careers, but that are crucially important to American society and richly rewarding to the women. These lives typically include elements of after-school child care, part-time work or work that pays far less than the women could ordinarily have commanded, and active volunteer or public service activities. The children of very successful men grow up to be well-adjusted and happy in considerable part because of the career “sacrifices” made by their talented wives. Nonprofit organizations and social service agencies are able to hire astonishingly talented women, despite the low salaries and benefits they offer. And at the core of most successful schools, churches, and organizations devoted to helping the less fortunate are talented and energetic women who, in another life, might have been at the very top of some profession or corporation.

No one looks down on such women. If anything, we wonder what motivates them to keep so busy, to accomplish so much, despite having no financial incentive to do so. And the same is true of wealthy families. Members of those families typically have no financial need to work, but the outcomes for them are exactly analogous to the outcomes of the wives of successful husbands. Some work 15-hour days, six-and-a-half days a week, as frantically driven as though the wolf were at their very door. A few do little or nothing. But the vast, overwhelming majority carve out busy and productive lives that may or may not look a great deal like “traditional” careers. But these lives are crucial to American society and richly rewarding to those who lead them. They are lives lived in devotion to family and society, and they enrich all our lives.

Given the enormous productivity of the wealthy, I am always puzzled by wealthy people—almost always the first generation, the ones who made the money—who say they plan to leave nothing, or very little, to their children, on the ground that inheriting a large pile of money will inevitably ruin them. For the most part, this is simple nonsense. Having money will ruin children if they lack character and otherwise it will not. If children lack character, they are already ruined, whether they have money or not. Therefore, the job of wealthy parents is not to disinherit their children, but to build character in those children and then to pass the stewardship of the family assets on to them in their turn. It is, in fact, remarkable how often the stewardship of wealth is better handled by second, third, and fourth generations than by the first.