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Walter Humes
Fancy Caribbean pad (not Walter Humes’)
There are occasions – admittedly infrequent and short-lived – when I almost feel sorry for the super-rich. It must be a great burden having to manage a vast fortune, especially in these financially volatile times.
Keeping tabs on business enterprises, watching fluctuations in the market, and constantly monitoring investments and offshore accounts, inevitably consumes a great deal of time. It is true that much of the day-to-day management can be delegated to subordinates but, given the dubious track record of many financial advisers, issues of trust must be a source of concern. Just who can be relied upon to look after your interests in an honest fashion?
Excessive wealth creates the need to spend extravagantly, partly to hide any undeclared income but also to claim legitimate business expenses which can be set against tax demands. However, once you have the luxury apartments in London, Paris and New York, not forgetting the island hideaway in the Caribbean where one is untroubled by ‘plebs’ (apart from domestic staff who see to tiresome chores such as cleaning and cooking), domestic comfort is fully catered for. Of course, there is still scope for the fleet of luxury cars, the yacht and the private jet but the constant pressure for conspicuous consumption must become very wearing after a while.
Then there are the contradictions in the lifestyles of the super-rich. On the one hand, they generally want recognition and respect. It is not enough that there is usually no shortage of people willing to bow and scrape in the hope of financial rewards or other benefits. Additional forms of recognition are required – a little something in the honours list, or an honorary degree from a university that might be willing to name a building after the recipient in exchange for a handsome donation. But alongside the public acclamation, multi-millionaires also want to protect their privacy, whether by resisting public access to their landed estates or by employing smart lawyers to prevent any adverse coverage in the press. Only the right kind of exposure is to be tolerated. It is no accident that ‘reputation management’ is an expanding field.
Family life too must come under intolerable pressure among the very wealthy. The wrong choice of partner can prove an extremely costly mistake. Attempts to insure against this by means of carefully-worded pre-nuptial agreements must take the romance out of the relationship. Where there are children, other concerns arise. There is the risk of kidnapping and demands for ransom, which is a common hazard in certain countries. Also problematic is the question of how far you allow your children to benefit from your wealth without turning them into spoiled brats. There have been many cases of sons and daughters of the super-rich who have proceeded to press the self-destruct button through drink or drugs, and/or serial arrogance and stupidity.
The desire to accumulate vast amounts of money can itself be considered a form of addiction. The super-rich are driven people. Indeed, one of the most striking things about them is that, no matter how much they have acquired, they are never satisfied. They always want more. It is not enough to be in the top 100 of the Sunday Times Rich List. They want to climb higher and higher. But even if they reach number one, there is the constant fear that they will slip down the rankings. This suggests that what we are dealing with is a serious psychological condition. A suitable name might be OCG – Obsessive Compulsive Greed. Perhaps leading psychiatrists are already devising suitable therapies to treat the condition (a situation that might cause them to pause, if only for a moment, over what an ethical fee might be).
Walter Humes held professorships at the universities of Aberdeen, Strathclyde and West of Scotland and is now a visiting professor
of education at the University of Stirling
