How Difficult Being Rich Is ! > IDEAS & IDEALS

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"And again I say unto you, it is easier for
             a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
             than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
                                                                (Matthew xix:24)

      Now the first wave of hue and cry over the collapse of Sampoong Department Store in the heart of Seoul, which killed more than 500 people, has subsided, and people are slowly coming to their senses from the daze they have been in, and the first and the original question repeats itself: how could this happen? How could a department store, and furthermore, the most luxurious one in Korea, where only the luxury goods are sold, the prices of which are so exorbitantly high that ordinary people feel afraid and ashamed to ask, tumble and fall down so easily and helplessly like a pack of cards? In broad daylight and in time of peace, not of war.

      The answer to the question can be made in many and various ways, but it can finally and ultimately be traced back to man's love of money. So many people who are responsible directly and indirectly for the tragedy, from the owner of the department store through the managers, construction contractors and supervisors of the building, down to the government officials, could not resist the lure of money, and fell victim to it. The owner of the department store bribed the government officials in order to make more money, and the people of the construction company used cheap, bad, and less materials than required, to save money. The whole question comes down to a question of money.

     Then, what is money? Why do we love it so much? How can we be so weak, so shameless and so unreasonable before it? I presume that the owner of the department store had already accumulated more wealth than he and his family could possibly exhaust in their entire lifetime. He did not need to bribe anybody, nor did he brave the warnings of the imminent danger from his men. We can find in him a typical observation that the more we have, the more we want - that the more successful we are at making money, the more whetted, not satisfied, becomes our appetite.

      Amid the rush and confusion of the Sampoong accident I have discovered and confirmed another problem, quite familiar one, yet somehow embarrassing to vent in public. It is the problem of the ambivalence of our delicate feelings towards the rich - the mixture of envy and disdain, admiration and hatred. During the desperate rescue-work I could feel that more commiseration or sympathy was being paid to and expressed on the misfortunes of the poor people working for the department store as clerks, cashiers or sweepers than on the rich victims - that is, so many regular clients of the department store.

      Contrary to our presumptions or assumptions, the lot of the rich has not always been better or easier than that of the poor. On the contrary, from the beginning of the world it was always the rich, not the poor, that had suffered from the constant denouncement and condemnation of the wise men and even of God. "Woe unto you that are rich," said Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, "for ye have received your reward." Ambrose, the fourth-century bishop of Milan was more direct and harsh to the rich. He thundered, "Do you think that you commit no injustice by keeping to yourself alone what would be the means of life to many? It is the bread of the hungry you cling to; it is the clothing of the naked you lock up; the money you bury is the redemption of the poor."

     All through the Bible and the religious teachings throughout the world runs this theme of suspicion and rejection of wealth, and consequently of the rich. We can hear constantly similar charges by the poets of all generations. None of the noble minds, secular as well as theological, has ever praised the rich or given sanction to the virtue of being rich. The pursuit of wealth, they just warn in chorus, when carried too far, can mislead the person and even destroy his life. They are right, but we also know they are wrong. Right or wrong, we have to admit the existence of the ancient, strong and deep antipathy towards the rich running through our veins. Why?

      It is clear that the activity of wealth-seeking or money-making has more than one root. At its base, however, it seems that we seek money because we must eat, clothe ourselves, and shelter our bodies from the elements, and therefore, reduced to its fundamentals the drive for money becomes nothing but the drive for self-preservation. But life is more than that. We are not only what we are, but also what we have. We are the sum total of all we can call ours. Not only our body, brain, and blood, but also our apartment and our car, wife and children, ancestors and friends, reputation and works, our land and bank account - all these constitute and construct us. We can say we can live without all these, but only biologically. As a social being we all want to grow bigger than what we are.

      With its unique capability of fortifying as well as enlarging an individual in human society, money is, for many, one of the best means to satisfy and realize our social as well as psychological needs to grow big. You feel not only safer but also bigger in living in a big house or driving a big car than a small one. Enough sum of money in your pocket makes you feel securer and stronger, and more important person than you are without it. Like a good and intelligent son for his poor father, like a well-written poem for a poet, a book for an author, an essay for an essayist, money, with its immense possibility as well as ability, has its own power of generating love for its maker. And love of money, like any sort of love, can be blind and dangerous.

      Then, again, why do we hate the rich? What's wrong with the love of money? Who dislikes money? Why should the rich be always apologetic about their being rich as if they had done something terribly wrong? When will the hard lot of the rich end and get an equal admission to heaven with the poor?

      The hard lot of the rich have been much improved recently when there are more rich people around us than ever before, but still they have a long way to go before they reach the gate of heaven open to them. Like the boy in your neighborhood who had more expensive toys than other boys when you were young, the rich are to arouse the childish envy in us, knowingly or unknowingly. As long as the rich continue to arouse envy in the eyes and minds of the poor, and so long as there are so many adults who have not yet mastered the infantile trait to envy the baubles and gewgaws of the rich, the gate of heaven for the rich will remain as narrow as the eye of the needle for the long time being.
                  (July 29, 1995)