A young man in one of my classes ingenuously suggested that the educated and well-off are more virtuous than the poor.  I wasn’t surprised that he held such a complacent view, but only that he so readily gave voice it.  Among well-off people, this sort of thinking is no less common than it ever was, but nowadays it is impolitic to let it show.

Such views have a history.  Most political thinkers in most times and places have believed good character more prevalent among the well-off.  They may have disagreed about which is more to be admired, the rich or the middle class, but they agreed in their suspicion of poor and working folk.

Aristotle thought generosity required wealth, because the poor have nothing to be generous with.  The Romans depended on men of wealth and good family, because they had leisure to attend to the affairs of the community.  Thomas Jefferson located the mainstay of the republic in sturdy yeoman farmers, who had enough property for independence of spirit, but not enough to oppress those who had less.   Alexander Hamilton was more impressed by “gentlemen of business,” who couldn’t be pushed around and had experience in getting things done.  From time to time I hear people say that tycoons are more to be trusted than working people, because they are too rich to be bribed.

Not all of this is mistaken.  Certainly there are differences among classes and social groups, and there really are advantages to experience and education.  But there is far, far less to these complacencies than meets the eye.  The comfortable are not less prone to vice than poor and working people, but prone to different vices.

A man from the slums is more likely to rob a convenience store.  But a man from a gated community is more likely to embezzle.

A mother on the dole is more likely to commit welfare fraud.  But a bank examiner is more likely to defraud the bank.

A poor man’s sense of humor is more likely to be crude.  But a rich man’s is more likely to be arrogant.

An uneducated bully is more likely to twist an arm.  But an educated bully is more likely to twist the law.

As to bribery, it isn’t through indifference to the chance of gain that one becomes a tycoon in the first place.

And as to generosity, I will never forget the poor woman who invited me and my wife to sit down and share her cake.