But here's what I think happens: people with more power can more easily hide their transgressions. So in practice its easier to enforce rules against people with less power.
Second, a known and agreed upon good is really useful when seeking to manipulate people and generate "thought terminating cliches". Certain organizations / groups have gotten really good at taking known good things, and weave in their agenda and propaganda, linking something obvious with something that seems to make sense but actually doesn't.
History is rittled with how a call to ethical behaviour has been abused by the rich and powerful to keep the lower classes down. In Europe the Church used this to extol the virtues of poverty to the poor while selling pardons to the rich.
In China, the richness of Confucian philosophy was distilled down to obey orders from above / filial piety above all else, etc etc.
The fact that bad actors have taken something good and done bad things with them does not take away the value that can be found, it just needs to be on our own terms, and not someone else's.
The wealthiest Europeans I know drive the cheapest vehicles. Modesty is wealth in many parts of the world, but perhaps not in California (the authors are affiliated with UC Berkeley).
Not saying I agree with GP, but your point doesn't hold up.
I think the reasons are obvious and unrelated to the point of the study. Desperation, culture (broken window theory) which is critically related to average wealth, lack of opportunity, and legal veracity explains the statistics sufficiently.
Also, it seems that higher status/income people benefit a lot more from acting unethically than lower income people would, the more money at the table, the more beneficial it is to act unethically. I’m not saying it to excuse anyone’s behavior, just speculating out loud.
> In contrast, other research in economics and sociology has hypothesized and found a positive relationship between SES and prosocial and ethical behavior. We review the empirical evidence for these contradictory findings and conduct two direct, well-powered, and preregistered replications of the field studies by Piff and colleagues (2012) to test the relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior. Unlike the original findings, we find no evidence of a positive relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior in the two field replication studies.
¹) https://pubpeer.com/publications/7363E2E1B57AC42EF166E0D0266... ²) https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-34988-001?doi=1
metalliqaz•41m ago
"Rules for thee but not for me."
"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Senators build their wealth by millions while "working" for the public, and nobody bats an eye. We all know how it works.
It's why some celebrities are so loved when they don't fit the mold. People give up their seat on the subway every day, but when Keanu Reeves does it, he is venerated. Most people don't have any care for the people who run charities, but Dolly Parton is practically sainted for hers. All high-status people need to do is not be wicked and we are awed by it.