Money Ultimately Leads to Moral Corruption

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel that centers around on the 1% who live in New York, specifically “East Egg” and “West Egg”. It is focused on era called the “Roaring Twenties”, an era of economic prosper after World War 1. Fitzgerald concentrates on how irresponsibly the wealthy are and how carefree they act. One of the main characters, Jay Gatsby, displays how his drive toward wealth turned him to become morally corrupted in hopes of appeasing his love, Daisy. His source of wealth is implicitly applied to be illegal. He engages in this illegal activity to become wealthy in order to do things that would appease Daisy. Wealth can lead to the degradation of moral values by causing people to become irresponsible, dishonest, and haughty. This is shown through politics, studies on the higher echelon, and the correlation between money and greed.

The fact that money is linked to moral corruption is portrayed through politics in our nation. In 2013, four New York politicians were arrested because they were accepting bribes. One surprised family member described one of the politicians as “a person who looked at the good in things”. The arrested politician had also been previously been accepting bribes before, showing how he increasingly became morally corrupt as he continued to want more money through illegal means. Although most politicians do not fall victim to bribery, this event shows that there are some that do. With so much power and wealth, politicians are constantly being faced with huge sums money; they constantly have to morally decide whether or not to accept bribes. From the 1980s to 2000, wealthy individuals and corporations spending’s increased to $495 million in order to rent loyalties of political parties. Corporations and wealthy individuals can gain control of political parties through money and influence the choices they make. Wealth is linked to moral corruption, because the political parties would rent themselves to companies in exchange of a large amount of money. In essence, the larger the sum of money, the more likely you would rent the loyalty of the political party. Although political parties are supposed to be controlled with political members, they are controlled by people of wealth.

When people possess a great amount of wealth, some of them feel a sense of superiority and believe that their money can protect them from their irresponsibility. This is portrayed through behavioral studies of the higher class. When a 16 year old boy was arrested for killing four people while he was driving drunk, he claimed that “his families’ wealth should exempt him from responsibility for his action”. This illustrates the degradation of morality through wealth; because this boy knows that his family has money, he uses money as an excuse for his actions. He believes that money can protect him from wrongdoings and that normal rules do not apply to him due to his status. They use money as a barrier to their responsibilities. A University of California, Berkeley study found that in San Francisco, drivers of luxury cars were four times less likely to yield the right of way for pedestrians. This affirms the idea that people of higher class feel a sense of superiority in comparison to everyone, and that people need to give them the right of way because of their success and power through wealth. In addition, studies were conducted on the behavior of the higher class found that wealthy high-class individuals tended to act less ethically . Wealthier individuals act in their self-interest first because of the lack of empathy for others. The reason for this can be shown through a game created by a research team where money would double every time if taken from a person. They discovered the wealthy spent less time thinking about how the other person would feel as a result of their action. They concluded that wealth and status reduce empathy because money allows someone to become independent rather than to rely on others for resources. This allows the rich to feel a sense of superiority above everyone else.

The correlation between greed and money shows how money leads to an increase of behavior of self-centeredness and focus on personal gain. This is shown through the Robber Barons of the late 19th century during the industrialization of the United States. These individuals had a great sum of money obtained through their giant companies that they owned, which established monopolies on certain products and unmoral ways they used to maximize profits. The monopolies that they established destroyed other businesses in the same industry as them. Many people viewed this as immoral as they purposely made businesses bankrupt. They tried to justify their actions by donating the money they made to social projects like universities, museums, and libraries rather than to charitable organizations, even though most of the people in the United States at this time were living in poverty. By donating to these public projects, they were recognized for being generous and philanthropic. This affirms that most of these individuals only donated to improve their reputation and to justify their wrongdoings. Similar results were shown in a study conducted from 2011-2012. They found that 20% of the lowest earning Americans donated an average of 3.2% of their income to charity in 2011, while the highest earning Americans only donated 1.3%. They also found that the 50 largest charitable gifts that where donated to public programs like elite universities and museums, rather than social services or poverty. This shows the correlation between greed and wealth because most of these people only donated money to improve their image to appear as philanthropic, rather than to truly help. Research conducted by Harvard University and the University of Utah found that when people were exposed to money related words, they were more likely to behave immorally or to lie. This can show how greed overwhelms certain individuals when it comes to money, and demonstrates the extent people are willing to go to obtain that money. A study found that when money is mentioned in a conversation, a region in the brain that is associated with pleasure, called the gyrus, is signaled and used. This shows that people feel pleasure when money is mentioned, which explains their self-centered behavior. Because our society values money, it encourages some to become greedier about money in comparison with others.

Moral corruption is ultimately due to wealth. Wealth causes people to become increasingly irresponsible, dishonest, and feel as if they are more superior then others. Psychologists found that money impacts our thoughts and actions tremendously in ways where we do not notice it. It could affect anyone, no matter which type of social economic class that an individual is in. Degradation of our moral values can be exemplified through any individual, not just politicians and the upper class. In today’s society, the connection between greed and wealth is strongly present, causing degradation of moral values in order to gain money and power that individuals desire, to continue acquiring more wealth, and to use wealth as a protection from laws.