Extreme Wealth – Episode 5: Paul Schervish and the Spiritual Duality of Riches
Bribe, Swindle or Steal
Alexandra Addison-Wrage of TRACE International
4.9 • 582 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2024
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For more than 20 years, Paul Schervish surveyed many of the richest people in America for a long-running study on how the wealthy view the world and themselves. In this episode, another in our series on extreme wealth, Paul explains how his research and his early years spent as a priest inform his understanding of wealth and its potential to improve the world. Applying sociological and religious scholarship to the question of how what to do with money — and by extension, what to do with the rich — he invites haves and have-nots alike to consider the roles that God, human agency, and spiritual fulfillment play in our material lives.
Paul Schervish is a former Jesuit priest and a professor emeritus at Boston College, where he directed the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. A prolific scholar and author, his books include "The Structural Determinants of Unemployment," "Wealth in Western Thought: The Case for and Against Riches," "Gospels of Wealth: How the Rich Portray their Lives," and "The Will of God and Wealth: Discerning the Use of Riches in the Service of Ultimate Purpose."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you go back to the creation, what was it that God gave human beings as the greatest gift? |
| 0:12.6 | Choice. So if choice is blotted out from your life by your wealth, you have a spiritual journey |
| 0:20.0 | and pilgrimage to make. |
| 0:22.4 | Welcome back to the podcast, Brib, Swindle or Steel. I'm Alexander Rogge, and today we bring |
| 0:27.8 | you another in our ongoing series about the impact of extreme wealth. As in past episodes, |
| 0:33.4 | we're speaking with guests who have a unique portal into this world and have been willing |
| 0:37.3 | to share their thoughts on how it changes the rules that people live by. |
| 0:47.3 | This is one conversation in a series about extreme wealth. |
| 0:51.5 | It may seem like a strange topic for a financial crime podcast, but I've |
| 0:55.8 | struggled for years to understand why, for example, people with $2 billion will brawl and |
| 1:02.9 | scrap and elbow aside their closest relatives to generate a third billion. And I thought |
| 1:09.0 | that maybe if we understand what motivates the alt-for-rich, |
| 1:13.1 | we can understand why some are willing to violate social norms, but perhaps more importantly |
| 1:20.2 | for this podcast, also international laws about bribery, money laundering, and tax fraud in order |
| 1:26.1 | to seize more, just more. |
| 1:28.9 | My guest is Paul Shervish. |
| 1:30.9 | Paul has served both as a professor at the Department of Sociology and as director of the |
| 1:35.6 | Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College. |
| 1:39.0 | He's also a former Jesuit priest who looks at wealth and the wealthy partly through the lens of religion. And he is |
| 1:46.0 | written prodigiously on this subject. So thank you for joining me, Paul. I'm very happy to be here. |
| 1:52.0 | Can I ask you to talk a little bit about your research, the academic findings, but also some of your |
| 1:58.1 | personal conclusions. You seem to have generated some sympathy for the very rich. |
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