Wealth and Value Systems:  A European Past and American Future

By Nanci Aydelotte

-- And what does your husband do, Madame?
-- My husband, Miss Sharp, is a gentleman. He doesn’t do anything!
Thackeray, Vanity Fair

The topic grew out of a focus group discussion about some of the contrasts between fortunes that have been generated in the last decade or so and the ones made prior to that. It isn’t about any one family or group of families - to paraphrase Tolstoy, each wealthy family is different from one another, regardless of how or when their fortunes were made. Not better or worse, just different. It’s about how America has changed and how society - with both a capital and lower case “s” - has changed along with it.

The past decade has seen the creation of wealth in unprecedented levels.   It has also given us an unprecedented aspect of wealth - for the first time we are seeing money made in an era when America is an ascendant world power. Money has been made here before - the possibility of doing so was the driving force for much of the immigration that built the country - but it was made when we were still growing as a nation, never since we’ve become a leader.

The fortunes created in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were made by individuals who, while celebrating their success as Americans, looked to their European roots for social mores and models. Eighteenth century French and British aristocracy created standards the rest of the world soon adopted. In an era when most of the populace lived at subsistence levels, the ability to choose how to spend your time was a true luxury. People who would later be called the middle class eventually became able to provide themselves with the material goods which had once set the gentry apart, but did so as a result of their own efforts. Even after fortunes were established, they were maintained by the continued production of whatever provided the original basis for prosperity.   The defining trait of a gentleman (or woman) was “the ability to do as one wishes with one’s life” or, as Mr. Thackeray commented, to DO nothing.

A hallmark of America has always been the desire to create a better life for your children. With the aristocracy as a role model for the emerging upper class, raising children who would never have to work a day in their lives or lift a finger out of necessity was a definitive accomplishment.   Whether or not this was beneficial to the children was irrelevant.

Not only did we assume the social traditions of Europe’s ruling classes, we also emulated the European dynastic tradition of maintaining wealth and power, as well. Men didn’t merely found companies; they established business empires and gave their names to organizations expected to survive long after their creator. A man expected his descendents to maintain the company he founded and often raised them to have the same sense of entitlement characteristic of the aristocracy. You were privileged because God intended it to be that way.   It was, as Thorsten Veblan titled it, A Leisure Class. This is not to say that wealthy families of that era expected their children to be wastrels. Their objective was to provide future generations the option of living a life with fewer of the demands and responsibilities incumbent on the rest of society and freedom from financial constraints.

Without the expectation of having to produce, for many people the goal of education wasn’t academic as much as it was social. The "right" school wasn’t necessarily evaluated for its intellectual potential. Well into the 1960s, one of the seven sisters required a course in "gracious living" in order to graduate and for many young men scholastic endeavors were less important than solidifying friendships made in clubs where membership was more a right of birth than of personal accomplishment.

The wealth that has been created in the past dozen or so years is wealth created, by and large, by people of the post-war generation.   They never knew a time of European power and influence.   They grew up in an America that was a global leader, where American culture - even Baywatch - became the standard others aspired to. The social consciousness of the 1960s was the backdrop for their lives.   They were raised by people who had survived the Depression and to whom work was a valuable commodity.

This generation also made its money young and on a scale no one had ever seen, rapidly outstripping what remained of earlier fortunes.     Investment companies with minimum portfolios that would have once been significant fortunes in themselves have sprung up and the phrase “ only fifty million ” no longer shocks.

So here we are. People with decades left in their lives and immense fortunes at their disposal. Because they are often younger, they are also people with children to raise. And they are raising them very very differently than their predecessors.

The most frequent comment I’ve heard from people in regard to their children is how to raise them to be responsible adults. Instead of seeking to insulate someone from the rigors of life, they seek ways to thrust children into it and make them aware of the privilege they have, not view it as an entitlement. Schools are no longer valued so much by who goes there as they are by what they teach. And it’s a rare school which doesn’t require some level of community service as a graduation requirement.

This is a generation of people who saw empires as archaic and inefficient. The companies they founded don’t carry their names and I can’t think of one built with the expectation of remaining a “ family business ” . Success is going public as soon as possible, not about keeping family control. It’s hard to imagine someone gesturing at the empty space flowing between wireless connections and saying “ Someday, my boy, this will all be yours! ”

More and more parents are aware that success can take many forms. Without the expectation of a dynasty to continue or a name to carry on, their children are growing up with a wider variety of goals. There is a general acknowledgement that self-esteem comes from accomplishment and people want their children to be productive individuals. As one father put it, “ I don’t care if my kid is counting bird eggs in New Guinea. I just want him to be a damn good egg-counter.”

Work and productivity have become the new status symbols.

In 1960, a profile of a young socialite might have asked for her description of an ideal husband. An article on the current "IT" girls in a recent Vanity Fair listed five facts about each, one of them unthinkable a generation ago. No matter how else they defined themselves, only one didn’t list a “ Day Job ”. Work is considered such an essential component of status that even if you don’t have a job, you invent one.

Conspicuous consumption will always be with us - it’s just been joined by conspicuous productivity.

For many of the people who have created this new wealth, philanthropy is becoming a larger and larger part of their lives. Philanthropy is an almost uniquely American tradition, supplanting the roles played by church or state in other countries and is a tradition carried on throughout our history. Our National Gallery of Art is largely the result of one family’s commitment to philanthropy and everything from concert halls to AIDS treatment centers carry the names of people who assumed a share of social responsibility.

While we’re still seeing buildings built and artists arting, we’re also starting to see philanthropy take a more interactive form. Social conditions and improving the quality of life have always held a place in American charitable practices. More direct involvement on the part of the giver coupled with the fact we’ve realized that teaching a man to fish is the only way to effect a lasting change is changing the traditional patterns of giving. At ever-increasing levels, philanthropy is taking on a more business-like structure. Fewer people are simply writing checks and hoping for the best. They’re now asking organizations to account for large gifts and expecting practical applications. The concept of venture philanthropy, where individuals bring both money and business acumen to eleemosynary organizations has gained strong support. In the international economy that gave rise to this wealth, people have also begun looking beyond their immediate neighborhood. Concentrated efforts to combat global issues where there are solutions available but no money to fund them have come into vogue with efforts to eliminate everything from childhood diseases to illiteracy.   This has always been a country of unlimited potential. We’re becoming a society where great wealth is being directed towards productive ends and is attempting to create new world values in every sense of the term.

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