Our Threatened Freedom

Is It Hard To Be Rich

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 55-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 055

Dictation Name: Vol. E - Part 03 – Is It Hard To Be Rich

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Is it hard to be rich? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

A very superior young man, worth a great many millions, told me not too long ago that it is not easy to be rich. A few years ago, I might have laughed at the idea, but not so any more. I have not suddenly become rich, nor is there any likelihood of that happening. However, I have been mistaken for a rich man, with some interesting results. In the very recent past, our foundation was given some large, used and expensive cars. The donors decided to switch to economy cars, and we got the big ones. One of these was a particularly expensive car with all kinds of accessories. Driving it made me feel rich. Also, people took me for a rich man, although all my life I have never personally been able to drive more than an old used car. The results were interesting, to say the least. As I stopped at a service station, or pulled up at a motel or hotel, people readied to talk, and they wanted to know what kind of work I was doing. On an impulse, I gave on different occasions, two different answers. Both true. On some occasions I said I was a writer, which I am, the author of thirty or more books. On other times I said that I am a minister, which also true. The reactions were very different. Those who saw me as a writer were ready to please me, flatter me, and also to tell me of foreign luxury cars I might like to try sometime. Those who saw me as a minister were immediately hostile and angry and very prone to nasty remarks. They obviously believed that it was necessary for a minister to be poor and in need of a handout.

But this was not all. Being taken for a rich man also means that one should be taken for all that can be had. People were immediately out to con me, to relieve me of some of my supposed riches. I found out that it is not easy to be rich or to be taken for a rich man. People are envious, and they are even hostile.

However, it is not easy to be in the middle-class, nor to be poor. Our age promotes class conflict, envy, and hatred. Whatever you are, someone resents you, and is out to exploit, or to blame for much of society’s problems. In other words, where class conflict is promoted, everyone is the victim as well as the oppressor, and resentment is present on all sides. A world of envy and class hatred is not an easy world to live in. Instead of increasing peace and freedom, it works to create conflict, and each group wants to hurt and cripple some other class. Each then sees its own freedom as necessitating the destruction of someone else’s freedom. In a world of envy and hatred, it is hard to be rich, poor, or middle class, because all life is soured and tainted by class conflict. As a result, all suffer and freedom wanes. It is not easy to be anything in such a world. The truth still remains, that we are required by God to love our neighbor, rich or poor, as ourselves.

This has been R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.