Virtuous Joe Six-Pack (of Zima, of course)

Megan happens to post about a similar topic to what I was going to post about, giving me further evidence that today is a good day to post about what I want to post about.

I spent a quiet evening last night reading Bertrand Russell's essay "The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed," from his collection of Unpopular Essays published in 1950. It's a quick read, I suggest you take a minute and do so.
Russell argues that modern societies since the French Revolution have idealized the poor. America built a democracy constantly reminding themselves that independence from tyranny was an option, just look at the noble french proles.
Now, there is plenty of evidence showing that law-abiding citizens come from all walks of life, as do criminals. There also is scant evidence showing that given a certain illegal opportunity, a wealthy man will engage in the illegality more readily than a poor man would in the same circumstance. Also, there is no reason to believe a poor person, elected to Congress, would be less likely to pander to the voters that elected them than a wealthy person would. Modern liberal argument that Congresspersons are unethical and immoral by helping the special interests that gave them campaign money do not acknowledge that a poor person, elected to that position by the same special interests, would behave in the same way. Nor do they admit that a poor man, elected to a position by a huge lower-class turnout, would be just as likely to enact legislation that helped only the lower class; an equally unethical scenario.

The point I'm trying to make here is not that poor people are immoral. I am trying to make the point (via the help of Bertrand Russell) that personal morality is independent of wealth or status. Though immoral celebrities and government officials make the news almost daily, that is because via their wealth and position they are more available to the media. The innumerable Joe the Plumbers of the world that cheat on their taxes and don't declare their full income almost never make public news outlets, and therefore get largely ignored by superficial ethics arguments.

As Megan points out,

The sociological evidence is quite clear that poverty is bad for families. Poor people have higher rates of marital breakup, and much higher rates of child abuse. Part of this is selection--people with violent tempers and impulse control problems are more likely than average to become poor. But even people without such temperamental handicaps find it harder to sustain a good family life. Economic hardship is, to state the obvious, very stressful.

So when I hear people say that an up-and-comer or a middle-class Joe would inherently be a better leader than a rich white guy with 32 years experience at the Capitol, I just shake my head. I'm not saying a poor person wouldn't necessarily make a good leader. I'm saying I don't think a wealthy person would inherently do worse.