
Empty Mansions: Don’t be old and rich in New York City - mike_esspe
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/11/24/empty-mansions-dont-be-old-and-rich-in-new-york-city/
======
fleitz
What an unfortunate event to befall a family of who acquired such wealth by
honest means:

In an 1907 essay Mark Twain portrayed Clark as the very embodiment of Gilded
Age excess and corruption:

He is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a
shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate
who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and
chain on his legs. To my mind he is the most disgusting creature that the
republic has produced since Tweed's time.[5]

~~~
vinceguidry
Not sure if you actually read the book, but it outlines the spirit of the
times Clark lived in very well and makes the argument that Clark never stooped
to the tactics of the so-called robber barons. He paid his employees well and
gave back to communities. He was known as honest and fair to those who dealt
with him.

His political failings could be traced back to a socially awkward nature.
Politics was messy business back then and it was impossible win a race
completely honestly. Nothing he did back then was any worse than what everyone
else did.

It even examined Clark's history with Twain and Twain's own relationships with
Clark's business rivals. That particular rant was very likely politically
motivated.

~~~
gcb1
so in conclusion they all lacked morals. or just being slightly less worse is
enough for your ethics?

~~~
vinceguidry
That's a very interesting philosophical question, how to judge historical
figures accurately in terms of morality/ethics. My own position on the matter
is that standards tend to evolve over time, so when seeking to evaluate
someone, you need to take that into account.

If you just go by the Golden Rule standard of ethics, W. A. Clark was far more
worthy than many of his rivals of his success. Politics, by its very nature,
introduces a great number of potential moral pitfalls and there aren't always
good and effective approaches to evading them.

~~~
fleitz
The world isn't an ethical/moral dilemma, stuff happens and people rationalize
it as to not disturb their worldview.

If you can convince most people that your reasons about why stuff happened are
valid then you win.

It's like Remembrance Day, no one died for all the horrible shit that
happened, only the good stuff.

------
kens
This sounds very similar to famous socialite Brooke Astor who died a few years
ago at 105 in New York with a $198 million estate. There were all sorts of
charges of elder abuse and stealing from her, and claims that she was forced
to live in squalor. Her son and his attorney ended up serving jail time for
grand larceny and forgery.

She was married to the great-great grandson of super-rich John Jacob Astor. I
find this to be an interesting example of how long wealth can persist in the
US, and a counterexample to the "three generations shirtsleeves-to-
shirtsleeves" theory. (As a random aside, her husband's enormously wealthy
father died on the Titanic after being denied a lifeboat spot. I find it hard
to imagine this happening to the rich and famous today.)

~~~
mseebach
> (As a random aside, her husband's enormously wealthy father died on the
> Titanic after being denied a lifeboat spot. I find it hard to imagine this
> happening to the rich and famous today.)

Well, with vastly improved safety regimes in effect across the board, it's
difficult to find comparable situations. But you surely won't find third class
passenger locked below deck while the upper crust is sauntering into the
lifeboats.

The super rich probably doesn't travel on the same vessels as the riff raff at
all, but I'm not sure private jets are actually safer than commercial
airlines.

------
rayiner
I'm mystified by the pro-aristocracy tone of the article:

> There are some happy parts of the book. Clark uses her fabulous wealth to
> indulge a taste for the world’s best dollhouses and model Japanese castles,
> built by craftsmen in Germany and Japan. She pays an assistant to write down
> transcripts of Flintstone episodes. When she wants to make a little music,
> she takes a Stradivarius violin out of the closet (first she needs to choose
> which of her Stradivariuses to play).

Yes, it's horrible that these people took advantage of her, but I find it very
difficult to get that worked up over it. On the balance, she still won the
cosmic lottery, inheriting a tremendous fortune she did nothing to earn, and
getting to spend it on trivialities like dollhouses. Rich heiresses attract
scumbags for precisely the reasons suggested in the book (they are easy to
deceive), and in a way such activity is just the natural downside of
inheriting a large fortune in the first place. Without justifying the behavior
of any of the people involved, I can't help but feel my feelings of pity are
better directed elsewhere.

~~~
kkowalczyk
I'm mystified by 'blame the victim' tone of your comment.

Does any old lady deserve to be taken advantage by scumbag lawyers or
accounts?

~~~
thwest
The victim here is the masses of 19th century mine workers discarded in the
production of her fortune.

~~~
iamjustin
Because there can be only one victim, right?

~~~
thwest
Because the slight of losing 0.001% of one's wealth in a non-violent manner is
comparable to the loss of thousands of lives, right?

~~~
iamjustin
Whoa, how about not putting words in my mouth, dude. I didn't say it was the
same.

------
Aloha
The book being reviewed here is one I've been meaning to pickup and read for a
while, just been lazy about it. Huguette Clark was literally a living fossil -
possibly the very very last holdover from the gilded age, really a very sad
story. Though by all accounts - she was happy largely - so maybe not so sad in
absolute terms over all.

~~~
vinceguidry
I'm going through it now. It's a fascinating account, to be sure.

~~~
Aloha
I just read it, having done so it appears she was largely happy, and in her
place by her own choice.

------
antonius
Although the doctors and nurses were taking care of this woman as best they
could, their ultimate goals were purely monetary based on her large wealth.

Sad.

~~~
fleitz
Yes, truly despicable, personally I forgo a paycheque for the honour of
working for the wealthy for free.

These doctors and nurses have some gall as members of the working class to
consider acting like those they serve. Who do they think they are?
Millionaires?

~~~
mikeash
There is a vast gulf that exists between working for free and blatantly
defrauding your patients. Most of humanity lives within that gulf. From your
tone, I suspect you may not.

~~~
fleitz
From the sounds of the article everything they did was legal...

Just as her father buying his senate seat was... Just as the various ways in
which Montana copper mine strikes were dealt with, just as the way Montana
came to become a state.

I suspect you may be uncomfortable with the moral foundations of US law and
how that country and its wealth came to be as well as the legal means by which
one may acquire wealth in the United States.

~~~
pstuart
Just because it was legal doesn't make it moral.

------
fleitz
How truly sad, it must have been so hard for her only ending up with $310
million at the end of her life.

It's far better to be old and poor in New York City, that way you can get food
stamps instead of having to subsist on a paltry quarter billion dollars.

~~~
venomsnake
Read the story of Christina Onassis and think if you would gladly switch
places with her.

If that woman lived the last 20 years of her life without friends and normal
human connections - it was a prison with gold bars but prison non the less.

Why is that we always look on the poor people below us as "they deserve it",
and on the richer than us that are not fortunate as "big deal - they have
money" it is only us the the Goldilocks of suffering that deserve compassion
from the universe.

~~~
oijaf888
The short wikipedia page about her seems to claim that she ran her father's
business after his death for a period of 12 years. That doesn't seem like a
prison with gold bars, it sounds like a career. Sure it seems like her
personal life wasn't a fairytale but how many people's are?

------
badman_ting
It's deplorable that so many stole from her. But as to the title, it's even
sadder how _poor_ people were systematically stolen from, historically and I'm
sure currently to some degree.

------
gcb0
AT&T and DMV does worse to me and i'm not even rich.

------
jfasi
I hate to be that guy, but why was this posted to hacker news, the site
dedicated to news for hackers?

~~~
peter_l_downs
If you hate being that guy, don't be that guy.

~~~
rfnslyr
Sometimes we can't all be the guy we want to be.

~~~
mikeash
That's fine when you want to be a guy who saves kittens and fights cancer but
end up leading a more mundane life. But when it comes down to not wanting to
be the guy who makes a certain kind of comment, well, just don't do that. It's
easy!

~~~
ternaryoperator
I believe it was a lovely piece of irony.

