George Monbiot- Extreme wealth has a deadening effect on the super-rich – and that threatens us all. Guardian Wed 24 Jul 2024 On a calm and beautiful morning off the coast of south Devon last week, I was watching a small pod of dolphins from my kayak. I had spotted them from half a mile away, feeding and playing on the surface. They were heading my way, so I sat on the water and waited. But from round the headland, at top speed, came a giant twin-engined maritime wankpanzer. Though the dolphins were highly visible and it had plenty of time either to stop or avoid them, it ploughed towards them at full throttle. As it passed, missing them by a few metres, the driver turned and glanced at them, but never checked his speed. The dolphins dived. They briefly reappeared much farther from the coast, after which I didn’t see them again. I could hear the boat long after it disappeared: it sounded like a jetliner. God knows what distress it might have caused the dolphins, which are highly sensitive to sound. I was overwhelmed by two sensations. One, obviously, was disgust. The other was puzzlement: where’s the joy? If there is one thing that almost everyone loves and – if they’re lucky enough – delights in seeing, it’s dolphins. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t stop and watch. Though I’ve experienced this good fortune dozens of times, because I’m so often at sea, I never cease to find it thrilling. The elation stays with me for weeks.But to the driver of that boat, it seemed, the sea was just a highway on which to race towards the horizon. It reminded me of something I’ve seen many times: the deadening effect of wealth. To own and run a 35ft boat of that kind, you need to be extremely rich. It retails at about £300,000, on top of which are the extraordinary costs of mooring, winter storage, maintenance and fuel. Isn’t money of that kind supposed to buy you pleasure? If not, what’s the point?
Extreme wealth can severely hamper enjoyment. As Michael Mechanic documents in his book, Jackpot, there are two groups of people who have to think about money all the time: the very poor and the very rich. Immense wealth possesses you just as much as you possess it: managing it becomes a full-time job. You don’t know whom to trust; you can start to imagine your friends aren’t friends at all; it can dominate and poison your family relationships. It can hollow you out, socially, intellectually and morally.But I think there might be a further corroding aspect of wealth that hasn’t been widely discussed. Great wealth flattens the world. If you can go anywhere and do anything, everything is over the horizon. You speed past the local and the particular, towards an endlessly escalating ideal of luxury: the better marina, the bigger yacht, the private jet, the super-home. The satisfaction horizon can retreat before you. Place has no meaning, other than as a setting that might impress the friends you no longer trust. But anyone who is impressed by money is not worth impressing. There also seems to be a connection between speed, noise and ego. There must be something unresolved about a person who feels the need to fill the sky with noise and capture the attention of everyone he passes, whether he is on the road or the water. And yes, it is almost always a “he”. Studies show an association between traditional concepts of masculinity, speed and dangero
Travelling by kayak, I cover less sea and must stay closer to the coast than the people racing past in powerboats. But I have an intimacy of connection with the places and living systems that surround me, with the sounds of nature, with signs too subtle to see at speed – sandeels stippling the surface, the dorsal fins of bass pursuing them, holographic sea gooseberries suspended in the water column, cowries eating star ascidians on the rocks exposed at low water – of which they are likely to be deprived. https://www.theguardian.com/