But why is the idea that there is a connection between Lack of ambition and too much wealth so powerful? Is it a myth?

One answer may be that the connection has more to do with American mythology than anything else. Since its very beginning, the United States has been occupied, some would say preoccupied, with “diligence and industry.”  Striving for financial success and making progress in business endeavors have been characteristic of the culture.

Similarly, the attitude toward inherited wealth has tended to be ambivalent, with the implication that all new fortunes were truly self-made on the basis of merit, or at least by hard work and the exercise of power, and that inherited money therefore seems to be “undeserved” by comparison.

When we say that the connection between inherited wealth and lack of ambition is related to American “mythology,” we don’t mean to suggest that the connection is always false and entirely an illusion, but to emphasize that Americans may be predisposed to believe that the connection is always true -- that is, universally true in all contexts.

The emphasis on individual diligence in pursuit of financial success as a “self-made man” is part of our cultural identity as Americans. Frederick Jackson Turner, when he propounded his thesis in the 1890’s on the influence of the frontier in American history, passed along this quote from a traveler during Andrew Jackson’s time:

“America is like a vast workshop, over the door of which is printed in blazing characters: No admittance except on business.” (Quoted in “The Problem of the West”, Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1896.  Reproduced at www.theatlantic.com/issues).    

 

Certainly, the openness of America – its freedom from what Turner called the “cake of custom” - seems to have promoted an almost religious respect for ambition. Contrast that with the European concern about custom, royalty, birthright, class and refinement, even in those countries that were early converts to democracy. As America was building out its manifest destiny, Europe more naturally continued to support the value and the legitimacy, or at least the inevitability, of inheritances and family fortunes rather than individual fortunes. Being a “gentleman” in Europe continued to be an accomplishment in itself.

Americans instead followed the role model of the rugged individual, even if the characters who played that role were sometimes a bit crude, or cunning, or unscrupulous. Americans liked the characters created by Mark Twain and the prairie wisdom of Will Rogers. In the early 1800’s, Americans were fascinated by the exploits of James Fenimore Cooper’s heroes on the woodland frontier, and in the later part of that century they were enthralled by the rags-to-riches triumphs of Horatio Alger’s heroes on the urban frontier . . . and in more recent times we have reveled in the successes of Sam Walton and Warren Buffett. Even our new heroes in industry are generally not from the corporate establishment but are pioneers in cyberspace and iconoclasts working across a whole range of disruptive technologies.

The American ideal of the frontier philosopher - and the reverence for commercial knowledge and novelty rather than custom and class - again leads us back to the ambivalence toward wealth. Ironically there seems to be a persistent idea in America that wealth is a burden - what might be called the “Dallas syndrome,” to grab a reference from the T.V. show “Dallas” that starred the unscrupulous J.R. Ewing in the late 1970’s. The popularity of that show indicates that even in these modern times Americans have retained the tendency to associate wealth - which was inherited in the case of the troubled generation of Ewings - with unhappiness or lack of virtue or both, even though we are encouraged to strive for it.

If America’s collective unconscious sometimes associates wealth with unhappiness, is that wishful thinking because the rich are undeserving? In tax policy, this may be evidenced by the “politics of envy” at least that’s what you call it if you are a conservative who favors tax cuts that would make the U.S. tax system less progressive.   Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) suggested during the tax cut debates in May 2001 that rich people were the only minority in the U.S. that could still be the target of discrimination.

But again there is ambivalence, which is one reason why U.S. tax policy is mixed on questions such as the redistribution of wealth. Everyone seems to prefer a level playing field, but that term is defined differently by different voices: Quotes>>>