Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich

Jason Brennan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000051766
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Monetary Policy
• Index: Economics

Finger-wagging moralizers say the love of money is the root of all evil. They assume that making a lot of money requires exploiting others, and that the best way to wash off the resulting stain is to give a lot of it away.

In Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich, Jason Brennan shows that the moralizers have it backwards. He argues that, in general, the more money you make, the more you already do for others, and that even an average wage earner is productively "giving back" to society just by doing her job. In addition, wealth liberates us to have the best chance of leading a life that's authentically our own.

Brennan also demonstrates how money-based societies create nicer, more trustworthy, and more cooperative citizens. And in another chapter that takes on the new historians of capitalism, Brennan argues that wealthy nations became wealthy because of their healthy institutions, not from their horrific histories of slavery or colonialism.

While writing that the more money one has, the more one should help others, Brennan also notes that we weren't born into a perpetual debt to society. It's OK to get rich and it's OK to enjoy being rich, too.

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Key Features

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• Shows how the desire to become wealthy in an open and fair market helps maximize cooperation and lessens the chance of violence and war

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• Argues that it is much easier for the average for-profit business to add value to the world than it is for the average non-profit

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• Demonstrates that the kinds of virtues (e.g., conscientiousness, thoughtfulness, hard work) that lead to desirable personal and civic states (e.g., happy marriages, stable families, engaged citizens) also make people richer

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• Argues that living in small clans for most of their history has given humans a negative attitude towards anyone acquiring more than her "fair share, " an attitude that's ill-suited for our market-driven, globally connected world

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• In a final, provocative chapter, maintains that ideal economic growth is infinite.

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure on the corresponding page.

1%, the 4

$500 bill theorem 92–93

Acemoglu, Daron 111, 113–114, 160

Adbusters 22

African growth 159

agricultural labor 87, 124

agriculture, switch to 30

altruism see money, giving away; selfishness

Al-Ubaydli, Omar 60–61

aluminum, production and use of 42–43

Amazon 100

Anderson, Elizabeth 11, 67

anti-vaxxers 8, 73

Apple computers 172

Archard, David 11

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) 96–97, 98

Ariely, Dan 59

armchair theorizing 55

armed conflict, mitigation of 34–36

art, higher forms of 178–179

Baptist, Edward 106, 123, 125–133

Barber, Benjamin 67

Baron, Jonathan 8–10

Basil of Caesarea 73

Beckert, Sven 123–124, 132

beer brands 173

beliefs, anti-profit 8–10

Berlin, Isaiah 29

Bhattacharjee, Amit 8–10

biases about money: in general 4–5; practical significance of 13; profit 7–10; rich people 7

Bible, the 3

Bloch, Maurice 64–65

blood donations 11, 62–63

Bloom, Paul 75–76

Bloomsbury Group 176

BMWs 93–94, 166–167

books, cost of 34

brands, cultivating self-image via 22–23, 172–175

Brazil 119

Brennan, Jason: classroom game 83–85; desire for money 2; goods bought by 21; intrinsic values of 68; profit and gains from trade 91; student papers 54

British Empire 105, 118, 120

Brown University students 145

Buddha 3

Buddhist monks 3

Burundi 27, 107, 114

businesses, profitability of 8–9, 91

business ethics, beliefs about 9–10

businesspeople, favor seeking by see rent-seeking

buying and selling, meaning of 65

Camera, Gabriele 61

Cameron, Judy 63

Candy Game 83–85

cap-and-trade regulations 100

capitalism see competitive markets; market societies

capitalists, favor seeking by see rent-seeking

car industry 93–94, 171

car ownership 15, 166–167, 171, 173

car value 133

cellular phones 170

central planning 47–48

charities 148–149, 159

cheating 59

child mortality 32

children: pricelessness of 66; saving 146–153

China 65, 115, 154

choices: moral 155, 161; prices as re...