DUDE, WHY DO THE RICH SUCK SO MUCH?

Second set of excerpts from Sapolsky's eye-opening Behave:

Why have stratified cultures dominated the planet, generally replacing more egalitarian ones? For population biologist Peter Turchin, the answer is that stratified cultures are ideally suited to being conquerors—they come with chains of command. Both empirical and theoretical work suggests that in addition, in unstable environments stratified societies are “better able to survive resource shortages [than egalitarian cultures] by sequestering mortality in the lower classes.” In other words, when times are tough, the unequal access to wealth becomes the unequal distribution of misery and death.

Almost by definition, you can’t have a society with both dramatic income inequality and plentiful social capital. Or translated from social science–ese, marked inequality makes people crummier to one another.

The frequency of “air rage”—a passenger majorly, disruptively, dangerously losing it over something on a flight—has been increasing. Turns out there’s a substantial predictor of it: if the plane has a first-class section, there’s almost a fourfold increase in the odds of a coach passenger having air rage. Force coach passengers to walk through first class when boarding, and you more than double the chances further. Nothing like starting a flight by being reminded of where you fit into the class hierarchy. And completing the parallel with violent crime, when air rage is boosted in coach by reminders of inequality, the result is not a crazed coach passenger sprinting into first class to shout Marxist slogans. It’s the guy being awful to the old woman sitting next to him, or to the flight attendant.

When humans invented material inequality, they came up with a way of subjugating the low ranking like nothing ever before seen in the primate world.

…people who dislike a particular out-group on economic grounds are likelier than chance to dislike another group on historical grounds, another on cultural, and so on. Much the same is true here—social, economic, environmental, and international political orientations tend to come in a package. This consistency explains the humor behind a New Yorker cartoon (pointed out by the political psychologist John Jost) showing a woman modeling a dress for her husband and asking, “Does this dress make me look Republican?” Another example concerns the bioethicist Leon Kass, who not only has had influential conservative stances on human cloning, finding the possibility “repugnant,” but also finds it repugnant when people display the “catlike activity” of licking ice cream cones in public. More to come on his issues, including with licking ice cream cones. What this internal consistency suggests is that political ideology is merely one manifestation of broader, underlying ideology—as we’ll see, this helps explain conservatives being more likely than liberals to have cleaning supplies in their bedrooms.

 

Categorical boundaries to the extension of empathy also run along socioeconomic lines, but in an asymmetrical manner. What does that mean? That when it comes to empathy and compassion, rich people tend to suck.

Across the socioeconomic spectrum, on the average, the wealthier people are, the less empathy they report for people in distress and the less compassionately they act. Moreover, wealthier people are less adept at recognizing other people’s emotions and in experimental settings are greedier and more likely to cheat or steal.

And, finally, a third set on conservatives here.