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In the oft-quoted exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, Fitzgerald insisted that" The rich are different from you and me." To this Hemingway replied," Yes, they have more money." Hemingway is certainly correct that having" more money," lots of it, is the sine qua non of being wealthy. In its stark simplicity, Hemingway's response highlights the profound truth that in fact the wealthy are very much like the rest of us, even in regard to money. The wealthy are no more enviable or pitiable, no more happy or troubled than anyone else. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald's fascination with the differences of wealth and the wealthy suggests a view more conducive to opening up rather than closing off questions about the distinctive significance of money in the lives of the wealthy and about how the wealthy work their way through the world.

Too often, fascination with the lives of the wealthy is satisfied by sensational accounts of either the crimes or cruises of millionaires. We are invited to share vicariously in the pleasures of their houses, vacations, automobiles, yachts, businesses, philanthropies, loves, parties, and other public manifestations of their wealth and power. Robin Leach's" Life Styles of the Rich and Famous" is but one expression of America's attraction to the royal luster bestowed by wealth. Another is the insatiable market for biographies of wealthy individuals and sagas of wealthy families. We also have witnessed the emergence of glossy magazines enshrining the lives and clothes of the wealthy such as Millionaire, Inc.,