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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Attitudes to wealth in seven countries: The
Social Envy Coefficient and the Rich
Sentiment Index
Rainer Zitelmann
Independent scholar, Germany
Correspondence
Email: office-zitelmann@web.de
Abstract
Based on surveys of attitudes towards the wealthy in
the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France,
Italy, Spain and Sweden, we calculate the Social Envy
Coefficient, which depicts social envy in each country.
This is complemented by the Personality Trait Coeffi-
cient, which shows whether respondents attribute posi-
tive or negative personality traits to the rich. These two
coefficients are combined to form the basis of the Rich
Sentiment Index, which reveals that the French, the
Spanish and the Germans are more critical of the rich
than the Swedes, the Americans and the British. Italy
occupies the middle ground, where the young are far
more positive towards the rich than the old.
KEYWORDS
social envy, the rich, upward classism
JEL CLASSIFICATION
Z13
1|INTRODUCTION
In an earlier article (Zitelmann, 2020b) in this journal, I presented an initial assessment of the
first detailed findings of the research project The Rich in Public Opinion (Zitelmann, 2020a). At
that time, the project had analysed survey data on public attitudes towards the rich from four
DOI: 10.1111/ecaf.12468
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2021 The Author. Economic Affairs published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Economic Affairs.
Economic Affairs. 2021;41:211–224. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ecaf 211
countries –the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France. In the intervening months,
the research has continued and the same survey was conducted in Italy in July 2020, Spain in
November 2020, and Sweden in February 2021.
Based on data from the first batch of surveys, we developed the Social Envy Coefficient
(SEC), which enables us to compare the prevalence of social envy in different countries. Our
more recent surveys have expanded our pool of data, allowing us to develop the Personality
Trait Coefficient (PTC), which can be used to compare assessments of the character attributes
of the wealthy in different countries, that is, whether people in any given country are more
likely to associate the rich with positive personality traits, such as intelligence and industrious-
ness, or with negative traits, such as greed and ruthlessness. Based on these findings, we
proceeded to develop the Rich Sentiment Index (RSI), which allows us to compare people's
attitudes towards the rich in different countries.
2|THE SOCIAL ENVY COEFFICIENT, THE PERSONALITY
TRAIT COEFFICIENT, AND THE RICH SENTIMENT INDEX
Ipsos MORI, and the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research in Germany, conducted
surveys involving at least 1,000 respondents in each of the seven countries; in total, 7,644 people
were interviewed. In Germany, France and Great Britain, the surveys were conducted face to
face. In the other countries, primarily in response to the restrictions imposed during the corona-
virus pandemic of 2020–21, the surveys were conducted online. Since many previous surveys on
the subject of wealth have failed to specify a precise definition of ‘wealth’, we informed our
surveys' respondents that when we used the term ‘rich’or ‘wealthy’, we were referring to
people with assets (excluding their primary residence) worth at least 1 million euros, pounds or
dollars (in Sweden, 10 million kronor).
The Social Envy Coefficient is based on several survey items that serve to measure the extent
of social envy among our surveys' respondents (Zitelmann, 2020b, p. 168). As we analysed
responses to these items, three groups emerged: social enviers, non-enviers and ambivalents. As
a subset of social enviers, we also identified a group of ‘hardcore enviers’(Figure 1).
Our seven-country analysis reveals that approximately half of the populations of Sweden, the
United States, Spain and Great Britain are non-enviers. In France, Germany and Italy, in con-
trast, the proportion of non-enviers is lower. At 33 and 34 per cent respectively, the proportion of
social enviers is highest in Germany and France. In order to calculate the Social Envy Coeffi-
cient, we worked out the ratio of enviers and non-enviers in each surveyed country (Figure 2).
Our analysis of survey data from Spain had, however, revealed that just because two coun-
tries have similar SEC scores, it does not mean there are no other significant differences. As can
be seen, Spain's SEC of 0.43 is indeed as comparably low as the SECs for the United States and
Sweden. Nevertheless, when respondents' answers to other items are analysed, significant
differences emerge.
These differences are particularly evident in relation to the personality traits our respon-
dents attributed to the rich. In all seven countries, we presented respondents a list of 14 per-
sonality traits and asked, ‘Which, if any, of the following are most likely to apply to rich
people?’Of the 14 personality traits, seven were positive: visionary/farsighted, industrious,
bold/daring, imaginative, intelligent, optimistic and honest. The remaining seven traits were
negative: materialistic, greedy, self-centred, arrogant, superficial, ruthless and cold-hearted.
We then calculated the average percentage of positive traits and negative traits for each
212 ZITELMANN
country and divided these two percentages to arrive at the Personality Trait Coefficient
(PTC) depicted in Table 1.
Our comparative analysis of data from the first batch of surveyed countries was based solely
on the Social Envy Coefficient (SEC). However, as we proceeded with our analysis, it became
clear that the SEC alone did not give us the level of detail we need to truly depict a population's
attitudes towards the rich. In order to address this issue, we therefore developed the Rich
Sentiment Index as a combination of the Social Envy Coefficient and the Personality Trait
Coefficient. Since the SEC is ultimately based on three questions, namely those that determine
respondents' positions on the social envy scale, the SEC was triple-weighted against the PTC,
which relates solely to the personality trait item (Figure 3).
FIGURE 1 Breakdown of interviewees (per cent) by position on the Social Envy Scale: seven-country
analysis
Sources: Allensbach Institute survey 11,085, Ipsos MORI surveys J18–031911–01-02, J-19-01009-29,
J-19-01009-47 and J-20-091774-05
FIGURE 2 Social Envy Coefficient: seven-country analysis
Notes: A coefficient greater than 1.0 indicates that enviers (levels 2 and 3 on the Social Envy Scale) outnumber
non-enviers (level 0 on the Social Envy Scale). A coefficient of less than 1.0 indicates that non-enviers
outnumber enviers.
Sources: Allensbach institute survey 11,085, Ipsos MORI surveys J18–031911–01-02, J-19-01009-29, J-19-01009-47
and J-20-091774-05
ZITELMANN 213
Compared with our previous analyses, which were based entirely on the SEC, the new RSI
analysis clearly captures our Spanish respondents' highly negative attribution of personality
traits to the rich. The RSI thus provides a reliable snapshot of popular attitudes towards the rich
in any given country. We can now see, for instance, that general opinions of the rich are more
negative in France, Spain and Germany than is the case in Sweden, the United States and Great
Britain. Italy occupies the middle ground between these two groups, but is closer to the other
mainland European countries. Sweden, on the other hand, is closer to the two Anglo-Saxon
countries, which may come as a surprise to some.
There are also very instructive conclusions to be drawn from a comparison of our Rich
Sentiment Index with the levels of economic freedom in each country measured by the Index of
Economic Freedom, as assessed by the Heritage Foundation annually since 1995. The higher
the index score, the greater the economic freedom in a given country is. Here, for our seven
countries, are the index scores for 2020: Italy, 63.8; France, 66.0; Spain, 66.8; Germany, 73.5;
Sweden, 74.9; the United States, 76.6; and Great Britain, 79.3 (Miller et al., 2020, p. 5).
TABLE 1 Personality Trait Coefficient (PTC)
Spain Italy Germany Sweden
United
States France
Great
Britain
Average percentage
negative
36 28 44 26 30 30 22
Average percentage
positive
12 15 32 24 31 32 24
PTC 3.0 1.9 1.4 1.1 1.0 0.9 0.9
Question: ‘Which, if any, of the following are most likely to apply to rich people?’
Average percentage of the seven negative traits divided by the average percentage of the seven positive traits
Sources: Allensbach Institute survey 11,085, Ipsos MORI surveys J18–031911–01-02, J-19-01009-29, J-19-01009-47 and
J-20-091774-05
FIGURE 3 Rich Sentiment Index (RSI)
Notes: Social Envy Coefficient (SEC), adjusted by the Personality Trait Coefficient (PTC): RSI =(3SEC +1PTC): 4
RSI greater than 1: Negative aspects outnumber positive aspects. RSI less than 1: Positive aspects outnumber
negative aspects.
Sources: Allensbach Institute survey 11,085, Ipsos MORI surveys J18–031911–01-02, J-19-01009-29, J-19-01009-47
and J-20-091774-05
214 ZITELMANN
It is striking that in Sweden, the United States and Great Britain, where economic freedom
is more pronounced, attitudes towards the rich are also more positive than in Italy, France and
Spain (Figure 4). Whether this is a coincidence, or whether there is a direct and systematic
correlation between the degree of economic freedom and attitudes towards the rich, would need
to be explored in further research involving a larger number of countries with different degrees
of economic freedom.
3|GENERAL AND PERSONAL PERCEPTIONS OF THE
RICH –AND OF WHO DESERVES TO BE RICH
Another of our study's important findings was that general opinions towards the rich are quite
different from the opinions held by respondents who actually know one or more ‘millionaires’
(rich people as defined in section 2). The reason we did not ask this question in the United
States, France and Great Britain was simply that, unfortunately, it didn't occur to us until later.
The data we collected in Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, however, clearly confirm that there
is a large discrepancy between attitudes among the population as a whole and the answers we
got from the subgroup of respondents who know at least one millionaire. This can be seen, for
example, in the frequency with which ‘honesty’was attributed to the rich. In all of the coun-
tries we surveyed, respondents do not regard the rich in general as honest –out of a total of
14 personality traits, honesty was the least frequently selected. In contrast, respondents who
actually know one or more millionaires are far more likely to describe the one they know best
as honest than are members of the population as a whole (Figure 5).
Beyond honesty, the same also applies to the other personality traits on our list. In all of the
countries we surveyed, people who personally know one or more millionaires are far more
likely to select positive personality traits than are the population as a whole. In Germany, Spain,
Italy and Sweden, negative personality traits were assigned to rich people by an average of
44, 36, 28 and 26 per cent of respondents, respectively. Among the subgroup of respondents
who personally know at least one millionaire, however, negative traits were selected far less
frequently. Of Germans, Spaniards, Italians and Swedes who themselves know at least one
FIGURE 4 The Index of
Economic Freedom and the
Rich Sentiment Index (RSI)
Correlation (Pearson):
r=0.76
Sources: Miller et al. (2020);
Allensbach Institute survey
11085; Ipsos MORI surveys
J18–031911–01-02, J-
19-01009-29, J-19-01009-47
and J-20-091774-05
ZITELMANN 215
millionaire, averages of just 15, 19, 20 and 17 per cent of respondents attributed negative
personality traits to the millionaires they know best.
In Germany, France and Spain, a subsequent regression analysis also confirmed that
knowing a millionaire personally is a significant determining factor in a respondent's position
on the Social Envy Scale, which tallies with findings we are already familiar with from preju-
dice research: People who are personally acquainted with members of a minority out-group are
far more likely to have a positive attitude towards that out-group than are people who have
experienced an out-group only via the media.
In most surveys, respondents are asked about their attitudes in general towards the rich.
However, it stands to reason that most people's opinions of the rich will vary significantly
depending on the source of their wealth. For example, did someone build their wealth as an
entrepreneur, or did they inherit it? Did they become rich as a highly paid top athlete, a lottery
winner or a real estate investor? In order to explore this issue, we therefore presented our
respondents with a list of ten different groups and asked: ‘Which, if any, of the following groups
of people do you personally believe deserve to be rich?’
In all seven countries, entrepreneurs and the self-employed were deemed to most deserve
their wealth. However, our respondents also stated that creative people and artists, such as
actors or musicians, top athletes and lottery winners, deserve to be rich. Financial investors are
also mentioned in the four countries with the lowest levels of social envy, namely the United
States, Spain, Great Britain and Sweden. In Germany, in contrast, financial investors rank
FIGURE 5 Percentage of interviewees who describe rich people as honest: four-country analysis
Question: ‘Which, if any, of the following are most likely to apply to rich people?’
Supplemental question to respondents who personally know a millionaire: ‘Which, if any, of the following apply
to the millionaire you know best?’
Answer: ‘Honest’
Note: In each of the surveyed countries except Sweden, respondents were asked about millionaires/the
millionaires they personally know. In Sweden, respondents were asked about their attitudes towards people with
investable assets of at least 10 million kronor, which is the equivalent of 1 million euros.
Sources: Allensbach Institute survey11085; Ipsos MORI surveys J18–031911–01-02, J-19-01009-29, J-19-01009-47
and J-20-091774-05
216 ZITELMANN
second to last and are also far down the rankings in France and Italy. In every country we
surveyed, bankers are regarded as the group that least deserves to be rich.
One particularly interesting finding is that enviers in all seven countries are far less likely to
begrudge lottery winners their wealth than non-enviers. Sweden is the only country in which
equal proportions of enviers and non-enviers believe that lottery winners deserve to be rich. At
first glance this may seem surprising. In any case, it certainly requires further explanation. After
all, other groups of rich people are vehemently criticised for supposedly not working long or hard
enough to deserve their wealth. So why is it that enviers think that senior-level managers do not
deserve to be rich while at the same time accepting the fortunes of lottery winners, who became
rich purely because they were lucky enough to pick the right numbers on a lottery ticket?
As the sociologist Helmut Schoeck observed, envious people are most likely to think that
advantages are deserved when they are the result of luck and chance rather than of achieve-
ment and merit. After all, if someone else has gained an advantage through luck or chance –
unlike when the advantage is based on achievement –it does not lead to the nagging question
of why one does not have that advantage oneself. Schoeck even cited lottery winners as an
example. The random selection process of a lottery ensures that the winner is not envied:
A wife will not nag her husband for not having bought the right lottery ticket …No
one could seriously suffer from an inferiority complex as a result of repeated failure.
(Schoeck, 1966, p. 288)
In terms of self-esteem, it is therefore easier to accept the good fortune of a lottery winner
without envy than it is to come to terms with the success of a senior-level manager. Moreover,
in the case of lottery winners, there is even a remote chance that one could join the ranks of
lucky winners oneself at some point.
4|ANALYSIS BY INCOME, AGE, GENDER AND
EDUCATION
Let's return to the Social Envy Coefficient (SEC). This varies, of course, according to income
groups. In most countries, social envy is less pronounced among higher earners than is the case
among lower earners. In Sweden, we registered a particularly large variation (see Figure 6).
Only in Spain does this correlation not seem to exist, strangely enough.
FIGURE 6 Social Envy
Coefficient for higher and
lower earners: seven-
country analysis
Sources: Allensbach
Institute survey 11,085;
Ipsos MORI surveys
J18–031911–01-02,
J-19-01009-29, J-19-01009-47
and J-20-091774-05
ZITELMANN 217
We also see variations between different age groups, with the most significant differences in
the United States and Italy. In both countries, there are clear correlations between age and
attitudes towards rich people, although they are, in fact, diametrically opposite. Younger
Americans (respondents under the age of 30) are far more critical of the rich than are older
people (respondents over the age of 60). This is evident, for example, from the catalogue of
personality traits that young and older Americans attribute to the rich (Figure 7):
On almost every question, a common tendency is evident: younger Americans are far more
critical of rich people than older Americans. Even the survey's most confrontational item, which
stated that rich people are good at earning money but are not usually decent people, elicits agree-
ment from as many as 40 per cent of younger Americans (only 23 per cent disagree), in sharp con-
trast to older Americans, among whom 15 per cent share this opinion and 50 per cent disagree.
Italy is –as far as the attitudes of young and older interviewees are concerned –the polar
opposite of the United States: younger Italians are generally far less likely to attribute negative
personality traits to the rich than are older Italians. The differences are striking: a majority of
younger Italians (52 per cent) are non-enviers, while only 16 per cent of respondents under the
age of 30 are social enviers. Moreover, the proportion of ‘hardcore’enviers among younger
Italians is a mere 1 per cent.
In stark contrast, among Italians over the age of 60, only a third (34 per cent) are non-
enviers, while almost half (45 per cent) are enviers. Accordingly, the Social Envy Coefficient is
quite different for younger and older Italians. The average Social Envy Coefficient for the Italian
population as a whole is 0.62. For younger Italians, in contrast, it is 0.31, which is even lower
than the lowest Social Envy Coefficient of any of the countries we surveyed (Great Britain:
0.37). Among older Italians, the Social Envy Coefficient is 1.32, which is even higher than the
highest Social Envy coefficient in any of the seven countries we surveyed (France: 1.26).
And when we analyse Italians' agreement with positive and negative statements about the
rich, we find that younger respondents are generally far more likely to agree with positive
statements than with negative statements. The opposite is true among older Italians. Of nine
positive statements about the rich presented to interviewees in Italy, younger respondents agree
FIGURE 7 United States:
attribution of personality traits
by age group (per cent)
Question: ‘Which, if any, of the
following are most likely to apply
to rich people?’
Source: Ipsos MORI survey
J18–031911–01-02, June 2018
218 ZITELMANN
more often than older people with seven of them; two statements attract the same levels of
agreement. Not a single positive statement elicits higher levels of agreement from older than
younger Italians.
In our other surveyed European countries (with the exception of Sweden, where there is
little difference), younger respondents also harbour more positive attitudes towards the rich
than do their older compatriots, although nowhere is the difference as stark as it is in Italy. The
differences between the attitudes of younger Europeans and Americans are also evident from
an analysis of the Social Envy Coefficient by age group (Figure 8).
Notwithstanding the differences between younger and older respondents' attitudes towards
the rich, there is a clear age-related correlation in most of the countries we surveyed: the
proportion of younger people who say that it is important for them personally to become rich is
significantly higher than the corresponding proportion of older people in all countries except
Spain. In Great Britain, for example, the proportion of younger respondents who say that it is
important for them personally to be rich (32 per cent) is almost three times higher than the
proportion of older respondents who say the same (12 per cent). In Italy, almost one in two
respondents under the age of 30 thinks it is important for them personally to be rich, compared
with only one in three older respondents (Figure 9).
It is entirely logical that a larger number of younger than older people say that it is impor-
tant for them to be or become rich. After all, they still have a long life ahead of them in which
to make their dreams come true. In contrast, anyone who is not rich by the time they turn
60 will probably have accepted that they are unlikely to become rich now.
Not quite so pronounced, although still clear, are the differences between the genders on
this question. The desire to become rich is more prevalent among men than it is among women.
This difference is particularly pronounced in the United States, although it is also evident in the
other surveyed countries. Larger proportions of men than women in each country say it is
important for them to be or become rich –with the exception of Spain (Figure 10):
Regression analysis revealed that the correlation between gender and envy is strongest in
Great Britain and Sweden, where in both countries more men are social enviers than women.
An analysis of the Social Envy Coefficient in relation to gender reveals that in Germany, Italy
and France women tend to be more socially envious than men; in the United States, Spain,
Great Britain and Sweden, the four countries with the lowest SECs, men are more envious than
FIGURE 8 Social Envy
Coefficient for interviewees
under the age of 30 and
over the age of 60: seven-
country analysis
Sources: Allensbach
Institute survey 11,085;
Ipsos MORI surveys
J18–031911–01-02,
J-19-01009-29,
J-19-01009-47 and
J-20-091774-05
ZITELMANN 219
women. Furthermore, the regression analyses in Germany, the United States and Great Britain
showed that better educated respondents tended to be less prone to social envy than the less
educated.
FIGURE 9 How important is it to be rich? Seven-country analysis by age group (per cent)
Question: ‘For some people, it is important to be rich. How important, if at all, is it for you personally to be rich?’
Answer: ‘Very important/important’
Sources: Allensbach Institute survey 11,085; Ipsos MORI surveys J18–031911–01-02, J-19-01009-29, J-19-01009-47
and J-20-091774-05
FIGURE 10 How important is it to be rich? Seven-country analysis by gender (per cent)
Question: ‘For some people, it is important to be rich. How important, if at all, is it for you personally to be rich?’
Answer: ‘Very important/important’
Sources: Allensbach Institute survey 11,085; Ipsos MORI surveys J18–031911–01-02, J-19-01009-29, J-19-01009-47
and J-20-091774-05
220 ZITELMANN
5|ZERO–SUM BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES TO TAXING
THE RICH
Among lay people, zero–sum thinking is a common view of economic life. According to
zero–sum believers, one person's gain is automatically another's loss –as in a tennis match, for
example (Rubin, 2003, pp. 157–71; Zitelmann, 2020a, pp. 79–84). Whether or not someone
subscribes to zero–sum beliefs was measured in all countries on the basis of the following
survey item: ‘The more the rich have, the less there is for the poor.’Our regression analyses
revealed that this zero–sum belief was the most decisive factor in determining the strength of
social envy in any given country. Table 2 presents an example of the calculation for Spain.
To move on, what do people in different countries think about the issue of taxing the rich?
Most of our respondents agree that that the rich should pay higher rates of tax than the poor or
average earners –and that is how the tax systems in the countries we surveyed are all designed
to operate. But opinions differ on the question of just how high taxes should be. In the seven
countries we surveyed, we presented respondents with two alternative statements:
Statement A: The taxes on the rich should be high, but not excessively high because they have
generally worked hard to earn their wealth, and the state should not take too much
away from them.
Statement B: The rich should not only pay high taxes, but they should pay very high taxes. In this
way, the state can ensure that the gap between the rich and the poor does not
become too great here in our country.
In France and Germany, for example, a majority of respondents believe that the rich should
pay not only high taxes, but very high taxes. In the other countries, too, relative majorities are
in favour of not only high, but very high taxes on the rich.
On this point, it is interesting to note that Sweden is the only country we surveyed to oppose
the suggestion that the rich should pay excessively high taxes. In fact, a clear relative majority
(49 per cent) of respondents agree that taxes on the rich should be high, but not excessively high
because they have generally worked hard to earn their wealth. Only 32 per cent of Swedish
respondents advocated extremely high taxes on the rich because they believe this would allow
the state to ensure that the gap between the rich and the poor does not become too great
(Figure 11).
TABLE 2 Regression analysis of
social envy in Spain: Influence of
independent variables on the dependent
variable (Social Envy Scale)
Independent variables Beta Significance
Zero–sum belief 0.15 ***
Personally knows a millionaire 0.05 *
Gender 0.04 n. s.
Unsure in everyday situations 0.04 n. s.
Household income 0.02 n. s.
Education 0.02 n. s.
Age 0.00 n. s.
R
2
=0.12
***p< 0.001; *p< 0.01; n. s. p> 0.01
Source: Ipsos MORI survey J-19-01009-47, November 2020
ZITELMANN 221
Perhaps this is related to the fact that, in Sweden in the 1970s rich people were subjected to
extremely high taxes and the Swedes realised at the time that the country's punitive tax regime
was damaging society as a whole. In fact, some of Sweden's richest citizens (including the IKEA
founder Ingvar Kamprad) actually fled Sweden to escape the country's excessively high taxes. I
provide more background on Sweden in my book, The Power of Capitalism (Zitelmann, 2018).
In the 1990s, the Swedish tax system was reformed and, although income taxes are still high by
international standards (although not as high as in the 1970s), the country has abolished its
wealth, inheritance, and gift taxes.
6|CONCLUSION
As a research project, The Rich in Public Opinion has uncovered significant variations in
attitudes towards rich people in different countries. On the basis of two of our indicators –the
Social Envy Coefficient and the Personality Trait Coefficient –we calculated the Rich Sentiment
Index for our seven surveyed countries. In France, Germany and Spain, sentiment towards the
rich is more negative than in the United States, Great Britain and Sweden; Italy occupies
the middle ground. And when we analyse our survey data by age group, we notice that younger
Italians harbour far more positive opinions of the rich than older Italians, whereas in the
United States, the picture is reversed.
FIGURE 11 Very high taxes on the rich? Seven-country analysis (per cent)
Question: ‘On balance, which, if either, of the following statements do you agree with most?’
Sources: Allensbach Institute survey 11,085; Ipsos MORI surveys J18–031911–01-02, J-19-01009-29,
J-19-01009-47 and J-20-091774-05
222 ZITELMANN
It is striking that in countries with a higher degree of economic freedom (the UK, United States
and Sweden) attitudes towards the rich are clearly more positive than in countries with less
economic freedom (France and Spain). Admittedly, from an analysis of only seven countries,
it is too early to draw any definitive conclusions as to whether this correlation applies universally.
One could assume that attitudes towards wealth are among the key factors in determining
the economic direction a country takes: It would be interesting to undertake corresponding
surveys in China, for example, where the enormous economic upswing began with Deng
Xiaoping's call to arms in 1992: ‘Let some get rich first’. Free-market economic reforms are less
likely in countries where the population has a pronounced negative attitude towards the rich
(e.g. France). It is probably no coincidence that the most far-reaching economic reforms since
the 1970s have taken place in precisely those countries where the population has a more
positive opinion of the rich (the United States, the UK and Sweden), while such reforms have
been largely absent in Italy, Spain and France.
In four of the countries we surveyed, we also investigated whether general perceptions of the
rich differ from the views held by people who know one or more millionaires personally. As our
data clearly reveal, respondents who actually know a rich person offer a far more positive assess-
ment of their wealthy acquaintance than the general population do of millionaires in general.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most people do not actually know any millionaires and this has a defi-
nite impact on their views of the wealthy. In Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, for example, an
average of only 3 per cent of respondents say that rich people are ‘honest’, compared with
28 per cent of respondents who say the same about the rich person they know personally.
In other surveys on perceptions of the rich, researchers have failed to distinguish between
the sources of people's wealth. When asked who most deserved to be wealthy, our survey's
respondents most frequently identified entrepreneurs and the self-employed, while bankers
were ranked last.
In all the countries we surveyed, we were able to distinguish between groups that have an
overwhelmingly positive or overwhelmingly negative position towards the rich. How strongly
these two groups are represented in any given country is also likely to influence key decisions
on economic, tax and social policy.
The groups that view rich people negatively are often characterised by a tendency towards
scapegoating and zero–sum thinking. Regression analyses for all seven countries revealed that
the decisive factor in determining levels of social envy towards the rich were ‘zero–sum beliefs’.
Zero–sum beliefs refer to the view that rich people can be or become rich only because they
have taken something away from the poor. Bertolt Brecht concisely expressed this attitude in
his 1934 poem Alphabet, in which two men –one rich, one poor –come face to face:
Till the poor one softly swore: You'd not be rich if I weren't poor
(Brecht, 1976, p. 241)
Whether someone adheres to this belief or not is a major determining factor in their
attitudes towards the rich.
Popular attitudes towards the rich become ever more relevant, especially in difficult
situations –such as economic crises and pandemics –because people always look for scapegoats.
Throughout history, minority out-groups have often been selected as scapegoats, not infrequently
also the rich (Glick, 2005, pp. 244–61; Gilder, 2012). I plan to continue this research project by
conducting the same survey in a number of other countries in order to assemble even more
empirical data to determine how people in different countries and cultures feel about the rich.
ZITELMANN 223
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