The story is at least partially apocryphal, but like most apocrypha, it does express a hard nugget of truth. You can look it up for yourself if the journalistic details are really all that important to you.
http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2009/11/rich-are-different-famous-quote.html
F. Scott Fitzgerald supposedly said “The rich are different from us.”
Earnest Hemingway supposedly replied “Yes, they have more money.”
“Rich” and “Poor” are, of course, purely relative terms, like “North” or “South”, or “Liberal” or “Conservative”. It expresses a direction, not a location. Its about a relation, not a position.
You and I are richer than many of the starving poor of some third world slum, and I can claim I am richer than most so-called billionaires, because although I only boast modest income, savings, and property, I have no debts.
But let’s not nit-pick. When I say “rich” and “poor” you all know exactly what I mean. For ordinary folk like us, “rich” means having a substantial amount of wealth (money, property, equities, etc). “Substantial”, of course, being another relative term.
For me, “substantial” means I have enough wealth or other financial resources to acquire everything I need. It also assumes I have sufficient additional wealth to acquire some of what I want (although I doubt anyone has enough wealth to get everything they want). In my case, it also means I have enough wealth, or projected future income, to provide for unexpected expenses or emergencies.
Of course, this latter criterion is also open to discussion. No matter how rich you are, it is always possible to imagine a potential situation where it is not enough: someone you love is kidnapped for ransom, you are involved in a lawsuit, you are struck down by a deadly and uninsurable medical condition, or you have teenage children. Still, I believe we are all probably pretty much in agreement as to what “enough” wealth means; wealth that provides reasonable security, comfort, some modest luxuries, and a cushion in reserve.
But for some people, that is not “enough”. There is never enough. Wealth becomes an end in itself, a means of keeping score, a means of self-actualization, a tool for acquiring even more wealth, and power. Because we all know what wealth is really all about: the ability to make things happen. It is social energy, the ability to do work. That is power, not in the physical sense of Energy (Joules) per unit time (seconds), but in the social sense of the ability to change the lives of others, whether they want to or not. These people, I submit, are pathological. They are sick. They have a social disease that makes them a danger to the rest of us. Oh sure, perhaps for some of them, this disease can be harnessed for the social benefit of all, the afflicted may desire to build railroads across the continent, or put an automobile in every home, or a computer in every office. But they’re still sick, because we know how dangerous these people can become if they can’t do what they want and if they can’t give us what they are convinced we need. And we live in a society that lionizes these people, heaps honor and respect on them.
This is not the rich Fitzgerald and Hemingway spoke of. They were talking about inherited wealth, old money, the financial aristocracy. The self-made man existed in those days, of course, but they were extremely rare, there were multiple social obstacles to them that are not as plentiful today. The people they spoke of were born into money and perhaps they can’t be blamed for their wealth–they possessed it at conception. Modern Capitalism has made possible the Self Made Man, the man who arises from poverty or the middle classes and becomes addicted to acquiring infinite wealth. It is no accident that “Made Man” is underworld slang for a powerful gangster. Like the Johnny Rocco character in the film, “Key Largo”, who when asked “How much do you want?” Can only answer “I want more.”
I don’t have any answers, just questions. But I have a right to ask them. A Made Man is President of my country. That gives me a stake in his career. At any rate. Here is what Fitzgerald actually said.
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Rich Boy.” (1926)