Is it Immoral to Help the Rich?

[An example of how philosophical counseling can assist someone who is making a career decision.]

On a philosophical discussion forum a member posted a question asking for career advice. He is a financial adviser and an advancement opportunity appeared whereby he would be advising relatively-affluent people on how to minimize their investment and debt costs as well as tax burdens. Basically, he'd be getting paid to help rich people save money. However, he expressed a sense of guilt about the opportunity, a hesitation, and asked whether people thought he would be "doing a good thing for society" by taking the job.

I began by commending him for listening to his conscience and asking questions about the moral quality of his choices and actions. The desire to have one's actions be beneficial to society is a good one. However, precisely what does or does not benefit society as a whole is not something we can often see very clearly. Obviously, some actions benefit certain individuals, and might harm others, and we wouldn't want to accept a job in which we engaged in, supported or benefited from evil acts, but whether any action is a net positive for society, now or in the future, is really anyone's guess. (It is also an appeal to a particular moral philosophy called Utilitarianism, which attempts to evaluate the moral value of an action by the degree to which it benefits and is approved of by society, but we can discuss that another time.)

So I asked him to rephrase his question to ask whether his choice would or could be positively harmful to anyone? Specifically, who would be harmed in any measurable way by helping people save money? Could he actually identify the person who was harmed, and quantify the harm done? Many people talk about how something is going to be good or bad for society, but in nebulous terms. Certainly, if his advice involved stealing from or defrauding people, or benefiting from some kind of immoral situation (e.g., slave labor), then there is a problem. But helping rich people save money isn't quite the same as helping a murderer sharpen his knives. Affluent people tend to spend their money; their purchases pay for people's jobs, and therefore their food, housing, clothing, education, healthcare, as well as that of their children, etc. A person who makes $200,000 in a year often spends some or all of it. Same for the person who makes $20,000. But the former person's spending did ten times as much to "benefit society" in an economic sense. Consequently, helping people save more of their money so they can spend it on things they enjoy seems to me to be a morally-good act, at least in that respect.

With respect to avoiding taxes, the (controversial) reality is that, in most cases, taxation is little more than theft via fraud and extortion. We are generally born into a system where it is the norm (not entirely unlike someone born into an abusive family), and so attempt to rationalize it in various ways. But to believe that there is anything honorable or moral about paying taxes is probably delusional. Some might argue that taxes go to help people in need, but the primary, direct beneficiaries of taxation are government workers -- only a very small fraction of any money collected via taxation actually finds its way into the hands of "people in need." Indeed, government entities generally refuse to even report such figures.

There are much more effective ways of helping people in need -- of helping society -- than paying taxes, if that was really one's motivation. In addition, like almost anyone who experiences a seemingly-unstoppable and widespread wrong, rather than fight or resist it we frequently decry those who seem to escape it. That is, we don't throw off our own yokes, but we attack those who do. Hence, we are typically more angry about the person who doesn't pay his taxes -- the one who didn't "pay his fair share" -- than we are about the system of taxation and all of the evil it is and facilitates in the first place.

In any event, I suggested to him that I at least could see nothing immoral in helping people minimize their experience of theft by fraud and extortion (no matter what euphemism we give it), as long as doing so did not expose them to some greater evil.

Image not to scale. :)

But there is something more subtle at play in this young man's thinking (which he has yet to work out). He is troubled and is asking these questions either because there is some conflict within his own beliefs and values, or because they are in conflict with the circumstance (or his understanding thereof) that he is considering. First, his concerns imply a belief that affluence -- especially keeping control of one's money or possessions -- is intrinsically immoral. He is not far from the truth here, in the sense that an attachment to material goods is at least personally harmful, and can also end up being harmful to others. The person who has succumbed to materialism finds disordered pleasure in the acquisition and control of goods. This is problematic in itself, and often leads to other vices (vices tend to come in bunches). Such a person desires to possess, but becomes possessed by and because of his own desires. The man seemed to feel that by assisting affluent people, he would be perpetuating materialism. But as a matter of pure reasoning, though it might be true to say that all materialists attempt to avoid unnecessary expenses, it is wrong to say that all who attempt to avoid unnecessary expenses are materialists. Consequently, the act of helping people avoid unnecessary expenses does not necessarily promote harmful materialism.

His concerns further implied a kind of unspoken belief that affluent people should be paying more for things -- they should be paying more for mortgages, and paying more in taxes -- and that he might be doing something immoral by helping them avoid such costs. This is somewhat obscured by his question about whether it would be "good for society" for him to help affluent people. This is not far removed from the communist/socialist maxim popularized by Karl Marx, "From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs." This implies a whole gaggle of beliefs regarding the relationship of the person to others in society, the role of property, etc., all of which would take considerable time to untangle. Suffice it to say that there are some things that would not be good for society, but helping people -- even affluent people -- save money does not strike me as being among these.

In the end, I advised him to reflect more deeply upon his own beliefs and values, and why he felt guilty about the possibility of personally benefiting (in the sense of being employed) by helping people save their own money. It is likely that he will discover, if he digs far enough, that the tension is between his own desire for affluence, and a feeling that there is something dirty in its pursuit -- a conflict rooted in some guilt about his own opportunities and desires. Perhaps he feels unworthy, or is afraid he will fail and so is looking for a way out. It is also possible (though less likely) that he is subconsciously sensing something about the position, company or overall circumstance that may be difficult, harmful or dangerous to him or his relationships, but isn't present to his conscious mind.

I suggested to him that he work this through -- clarify his beliefs and values -- before accepting the position, lest he end up in a place where he is personally compromised or acting in conflict with his own convictions.