Dialogue: Measuring worth by money gained

By SANDY BURGHAM

The Rich List has hit the news-stands proving emphatically that while the 80s have been and gone the legacy remains.

There are really rich people out there and frankly we want to know who they are.

Sure it's a tasteless social register forced upon a bewildered public who can't quite believe that anyone can actually be that rich. But who can resist a wee peek?

Of course, to have such a brazen display of wealth presented to us in what seems to be order of priority always seems incongruous with the rhythm of life in mainstream New Zealand.

Aren't we supposed to be a self-effacing, unpretentious lot? Since when have there been enough super-rich people here in New Zealand to form an official social layer?

Isn't this whole gambit just a shallow import from America?

The fact that a published Rich List evokes such interest is proof that even in down-to-earth New Zealand, wealth overshadows any other asset in a person's character.

Despite saying that money isn't everything, we have used money as the ready reckoner as to how well we are doing.

Too often we have heard comments like "He's doing so well overseas, he's on six figures you know."

Health, general happiness, lack of stress and passions seem to be but secondary yardsticks.

Apparently the Rich List irritates lots of really rich people because not only do they feel it is an inaccurate record but, more importantly, an invasion of privacy.

Although I would agree that personal fortunes are more a private than public matter, I wonder why everyone is so secretive about it or touchy when the cover is blown. I mean, so what if people know how much you earn? If a person places no real importance on what people think, then it shouldn't matter.

As a keen young thing early on in my career I was slapped back when going for my first pay rise. The jump I was requesting was from $10,000 to $12,000 per annum and my cunning plan was to have safety in numbers and thus present my case in tandem with my co-worker who was on $12,000 looking to go to $14,000 (he was a bloke of course).

My enraged boss' key defence seem to be concerning the perils of divulging our salaries to other people, especially workmates.

We left empty-handed and I dutifully considered this "loose lips" experience to be a big life lesson.

However, a decade on from this event, I was drawn to a bold and confident work colleague who disputed this habit of salary secrecy by putting a new conspiracy theory slant on things.

"Keeping your income quiet," she announced, "only serves to help the company not the individual. This cone of silence protects the gender pay gap and other gross inconsistencies among salaried workers.

"Why be so secretive about your income? What's the big deal?" she declared, inciting us all to action.

With this call to arms, a group of us naively decided we would come out of the closet, divulging our incomes to all interested parties.

Of course, this is not a recommended strategy for the fainthearted. (Indeed, we spent months fending off angry management types.) But, I still applaud the sentiment of why should it matter if people know what you earn?

To many it does matter an awful lot, and perhaps for all the wrong reasons. Thus we hear about those strutting peacocks that are actually campaigning to get on to the Rich List, only to be told sorry not rich enough. Try again next year.

Despite its tackiness, the Rich List could be classed as a journalistic coup since it seems to evoke such extreme emotions - bitter resentment from the eat-the-rich brigade who support removing incentives for personal progress through higher taxes, anger by flash Harrys and johnny-come-latelys for whom exclusion is a blow to both their business and sex lives, and dismay by those registered whose worth seems to be have been calculated by random shots in the dark.

But why take it so seriously? Once, a friend of mine was surprised to find his estimated fortune featured on the Rich List for a couple of years running.

Despite some annoyance regarding the misrepresentation of the sum, he took it all in his stride and fondly recalls his child asking, "Daddy you know how last year it said you had $15 million?"

"Yes," he replied, not quite sure where this was going.

"And this year it says you have $14 million?"

"Yes."

"Well, what I want to know is this - what happened to that other million?"