September 24, 2014

The Rich Have Always Been Obnoxious and Entitled

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I’m not sure what’s going on with David Brooks. It’s something, obviously, but I can’t put my finger on it. In any case, he thinks we should all cheer up because America’s cities are safer and more interesting than ever; poverty is down; and our global enemies are mostly just a “bunch of barbarians riding around in pickup trucks.” Despite this, there was a lot of “despondency and passivity and talk of unraveling” floating around this summer. We have a leadership crisis:

This leadership crisis is eminently solvable. First, we need to get over the childish notion that we don’t need a responsible leadership class, that power can be wielded directly by the people. America was governed best when it was governed by a porous, self-conscious and responsible elite….Second, the elite we do have has to acknowledge that privilege imposes duties. Wealthy people have an obligation to try to follow a code of seemliness. No luxury cars for college-age kids. No private jet/ski weekends. Live a lifestyle that is more integrated into middle-class America than the one you can actually afford. Strike a blow for social cohesion.

I’ve never understood people who talk this way. I mean, sure, I’d very much agree that rich parents should avoid giving their teenage kids Ferraris for Christmas. But does anyone seriously think this is anything new? Stories of young swells out on the town are as old as stories of young swells. How many Victorian novels turn on the plot device of a young heir borrowing against his expectations and blowing it all on gambling and grand tours? Does the ruling class of Dickens seem like a group of people striking a blow for social cohesion? (Other than by main force, that is.) And by the time the Gilded Age rolled around, things weren’t much different in America. We just hadn’t had centuries to perfect quite the same easy tone of entitlement and snottiness.

The excesses of the rich are indeed unseemly. I’m perfectly happy to see Brooks try to shame this behavior away. But pretending that it was different in the past? Get real.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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