As it turns out, rich people are just like regular people, but with more money.

Just like none of us believe that we would have been slave owners / allowed ourselves to be slaves if we had lived in the 1700s, we all like to believe that we’re better people and would have risen above, given the same circumstances… but the odds are stacked pretty highly against that. And the odds are also pretty high that the 99% would behave exactly the same way the 1% does, given massive piles of cash.  Money changes everything, as the 18th century Austrian philosopher Cyndi Lauper once said.

This concept doesn’t forgive bad behavior on anyone’s part, it’s not in any way a justification for terrible things done in the past, but it does help in the discussion, in my opinion: “they” (the 1%) are not the Faceless Other. “They” are us; “they” respond to similar incentives, and demonizing people who are just as human as you are doesn’t help any of us advance the conversation.

That being said, the rich eat more foie gras, so they are less stringy and much tastier.