Rich should pass the bucks

In a famous exchange that probably never happened, but reveals such a deep and abiding truth about American attitudes toward wealth that it continues to slip down the polished banister of the decades, F. Scott Fitzgerald chatted with Ernest Hemingway.

“The rich are different from you and me,” Fitzgerald allegedly mused.

“Yes,” Hemingway reportedly replied. “They have more money.”

Indeed they do, and maybe Hemingway was right to puncture Fitzgerald’s dreamy awe with an all-American wisecrack.

But Fitzgerald got the last laugh. His obsession with the wealthy, his conviction that vast Gatsbyesque fortunes bestow a special aura, more accurately reflects the nation’s stance toward big bucks than does Hemingway’s too-literal retort.

Which brings us to Warren Buffett’s announcement last week about his gargantuan gift to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The buzz and fuss and froth and chatter that greeted Buffett’s gesture – the two most-asked questions seemed to be “Why’d he do it?” and “What took him so long?” – prove anew the nation’s permanently conflicted feeling about rich people and their responsibilities.

The coin of the American soul has two sides. On one side, we’re cynics and realists: Money’s good. More money is better. A lot of money, better still. We share Hemingway’s disdain for putting the wealthy in a special category; the rich, after all, just have more dough. Period.

And on the other side of the coin, we believe that being rich implies a crucial distinction: Being rich, ultimately, is about a great deal more than just making gobs of money.

We believe that a Buffett or a Gates – and in an earlier era, a John D. Rockefeller or an Andrew Carnegie – does have specific and persistent moral obligations. From those to whom much is given, as the aphorism goes, much is expected; and thus even while we’re smiling at and applauding Buffett’s gesture, we also privately add, “And it’s about time, Bub.”

Other nations, to be sure, have impressive philanthropic traditions, but the United States seems to maintain a unique philosophical stance toward huge fortunes and the attendant social responsibility. This ambivalence about abundance was especially apparent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as super-wealthy businessmen such as Rockefeller and Carnegie made their blow-off-the-doors charitable giveaways.

“My sense is that the United States really did blaze a trail in this direction,” said Ron Chernow, author of “Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller” (1998). “In 19th-century England, there were colossal industrial fortunes made, but it was in the United States that we saw the rise of these great (philanthropic) foundations. The significant innovations came here.”

The reason, Chernow speculates, may rest in the fact that America was a young country of energetic rebels, not an ancient land of titled royalty. “Having lacked the history of monarchy or aristocracy, a lot of those expectations were transferred onto the shoulders of the nation’s tycoons.” And they responded: Rockefeller with his universities, Carnegie with his libraries.

Jean Strouse, author of “Morgan: American Financier” (1999), concurs. “There is no other country in the world that does this, all of this philanthropy” from private citizens, she said. “Europe had these traditions of monarchs and popes who would create cultural institutions – the Louvre, the British Museum. There was nothing like that here, so creating those institutions fell to individuals.”

Another factor, Chernow notes, is that because of the financial disclosure requirements of America’s public markets, “the great fortunes in the U.S. have been more transparent than in other countries. We know a lot about the wealth of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. In Latin American countries, for instance, families are much more secretive. They tend to hide their wealth. They may not feel the same obligation to the public.”

Since its founding, many historians say, the United States has glowed with the idea that economic success imbues its citizens with a special destiny. “A sense of mission to redeem the Old World by high example was generated by pioneers of idealistic spirit on their arrival in the New World,” wrote Frederick Merck in his book “Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History” (1966). “It was generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven. It appeared thereafter in successive generations of Americans, with changes in the type of mission, but with the sense of mission unaltered.”

That sense of mission comes from our earnestness. It comes from our basic decency. Our dedication to fair play. And it comes from the great challenge that burns at the heart of capitalism: the fact that some prosper wildly, while others do not, and it’s not always easy to figure out why the disparities happen the way they do.

Capitalism works because many capitalists worry. They worry not only about profits, but also about doing the right thing – in their companies, in their communities, in their country and in the world. We know that Carnegie gave away more than 90 percent of his wealth before he died; the greatest sin, he believed, was dying rich. We know that Gates and his wife are devoted to the idea of having their wealth make a difference in the world.

The challenge in capitalism is not to amass a fortune; a bragging oaf such as Donald Trump can do that. The challenge is to amass that fortune while retaining a sense of obligation to others. It’s a tricky philosophical balance – if, as capitalism teaches, smarts and hard work pay off, then why should I water down my empire to help you slackers who probably slept late while I was down at the mill? – but it is the fascinating and enduring challenge of American business. It’s what separates us in the history of the world.

Yes, we like to gossip about the rich and what they spend. Big houses, fancy cars, yachts, diamonds, private islands – it’s a blast to read about the baubles and the bloated excess. We’re human.

But we also demand something else of our wealthiest citizens, and they demand it of themselves: a conscience. And so we ogle the goodies that money can buy, and then we sober up and say: How many children go to bed hungry each night? How can we improve our schools? Conquer diseases?

Buffet knows he can’t save the world. He just knows what all Americans seem to know in their bones: He has to try.