by Neville Kennard, veteran preaching and practising capitalist

There are quite a few people who are capitalist in their practice and lifestyle — they have possessions, a house, car, job or business, and they seek more — yet they don’t call themselves capitalists or acknowledge that it could be capitalism that brought them their goodies and lifestyle. They may even denounce capitalism. They seem to have some guilt complex about their good fortune, their abundance.

What is this all about, this guilt? Is it a carry-over from religious teaching, where guilt and fear were taught at least as much as love and appreciation?

Certainly in our schooling, and particularly the economic education that is taught, is not appreciative of capitalism. Money is somehow denigrated; prosperity is not appreciated and valued. Government is advocated as the panacea for any perceived wrongs or imbalances or unfairness. Is this lack of appreciation of the underlying reasons for financial prosperity and human progress due to lack of awareness and education of its underlying causes?

Hollywood too does a number on capitalists, on business, on the moral and ethical attributes of wealth and prosperity.

When I talk with Australians who travel to poor places, they only see charity as the solution. I make a habit of enquiring about the property rights that are present, or absent, in the poor places. Seldom is this sine qua non of prosperity — property rights! — on their radar. And thus, as they don’t see the cause of the lack of prosperity, they may well feel guilty. They can become guilty capitalists.

This guilty capitalist syndrome seems particularly prevalent in the west. The Chinese, and other Asians, rejoice in wealth and prosperity and work hard to attain it. Wealthy Asians may be generous philanthropists; they are also likely to be keen capital preservationists, not feeling guilt about having gained wealth or of preserving it for future generations. The Chinese have recently been exhorted to become and celebrate wealth.

Most people become wealthy through honest work, through re-investment, through diligent and intelligent application and need feel no guilt about their fortunate condition. Inheritors of wealth, when they have not earned it themselves, may well not appreciate the work and application that has gone into its acquisition so these “trust baby” types may well feel a bit of guilt. Of course, they can always appease this guilt affliction by giving their money away.

Often we feel OK about our own financial situation, but we have a bit of envy towards those who have more. We may denounce the more wealthy as being “filthy rich”, or even “obscenely rich”. Even if we don’t really want to be as rich as the bloke in the big house on the hill, we may feel some resentment towards his display of wealth and are ready to heap a bit of opprobrium on him and his Ferrari, and think that he should feel guilty for having “so much” … so much more than I have, or so much more than he “really needs”.

And the bloke on the hill with the Ferrari may himself feel a bit of guilt, when really he has done nothing wrong except offend the sensibilities of and cause some envy with his neighbours.

The celebrity philanthropists probably carry a fair bit of guilty capitalist syndrome, and like to display their generosity for all to see. A psychologist could explain this compulsion to be flamboyant rather than anonymous in the mind and actions of the celebrity philanthropists.

Oh well, if the guilty capitalists can get to feel less guilty by becoming celebrity philanthropists, long may they live and give!